April Think Tank: New Entrepreneur Opportunities in Cloud Computing

April 28, 2009

When:      Tuesday, April 28, Networking starts at 7:00 PM.  Program starts at 7:30 PM.
Cost:        FREE
Where:     Seattle University, Schafer Auditorium (Main floor of the Lemieux Library)

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
Cloud computing has come of age and this change represents new opportunities for entrepreneurs to enable companies to not just leverage cloud resources for scale but to move all of their computing requirements to the cloud. This change will require new approaches, services, and products to help companies move quickly and take advantage of the changes this paradigm shift represents.

Our panelists are business innovators in cloud computing and each have a different approach to building and profiting from new products and services to helping companies take advantage of cloud computing. They will discuss what the market represents, how to approach and profit from it, and how to get started in this exciting new space. Please join us to learn how to take advantage of this change in the landscape.

As always with NWEN Think Tank events, there will be opportunity for dynamic and engaging interactive dialogue. This event is certain to be a unique and outstanding program so don’t miss it. Early registration is recommended as they usually fill quickly.

OUR PANEL
Ashutosh Tiwary is Founder and CEO of Doyenz which is focused on building the most comprehensive Automated Virtual IT platform for the SMB.

Ashutosh has held a variety of technology and business leadership roles during his 25 year tenure in the computer industry. Most recently, Ashutosh was co-founder and CTO of Performant, which emerged from his PhD thesis work. Performant, founded in summer of 2000 and successfully acquired by Mercury in 2003, built enterprise class tools for performance diagnostics. At Mercury, Ashutosh led the diagnostics business as its Vice President. Ashutosh then joined Microsoft as the Senior Architect for Visual Studio Team System where he created and managed a product unit that built a suite of tools for software testing.

Ashutosh earned a bachelor's degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani, India, a Master's degree in Computer Science from Texas A&M University, and was a PhD Candidate in the Computer Science Department at the University of Washington.

Praerit Garg Praerit is the President & Co-founder of Symform, Inc. which is launching a low cost, enterprise class Cooperative Storage Cloud service that enables IT service providers to efficiently utilize existing capacity and extend onsite backup solutions with a secure, reliable, and automated disaster recovery offering that organizations of all sizes can afford.

Prior to Symform, he was a Senior Director in Microsoft's Server and Tools division where he built the Dynamic Systems Platform & Tools team ground up to 70+ members including an acquisition and integration of a company. His team drove a broad industry initiative to expand W3C's XML standard to incorporate modeling language enhancements called Service Modeling Language (SML) as well as delivered distributed modeling system in Visual Studio 2007, Group Policy tools in Windows Vista/Server 2008, Server Manager in Windows Server 2008 and Desired Configuration Management in System Center Configuration Manager 2007. Earlier in his 12+ year tenure at Microsoft, he held various engineering leadership positions in Windows ranging from a software developer to Group Program Manager.

Praerit is a co-inventor on 14 US and International patents and co-author of IETF RFC 3645, Web Services WS-Trust and WS-Secure Conversation specifications. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University and a B.E.(Hons.) from Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India.

Prashant Ketkar is the Director of Product and Field Marketing for Windows Azure. Prior to his current role, Prashant led the Enterprise Partner Strategy team in the Information Worker (Office) team. He has over 10 years of industry experience in technology product marketing, branding and product strategy.

Jeff Lawson is the CEO of Twilio which provides a telephony infrastructure web service "in the cloud", enabling web programmers to integrate real-time phone calls into their applications. Twilio's simple, powerful API and Pay-As-You-Go pricing model minimizes the learning curve and means customers pay for capacity only when they need it. Headquartered San Francisco the company has received investments from Founder’s Fund and software industry luminary Mitch Kapor.

Jeff has over 10 years of entrepreneurial leadership experience and most recently served as Product Manager for Amazon Web Services. He was also co-founder and CTO of sports retailer Nine Star, founding CTO of online ticketing exchange Stubhub.com, and founder and CEO of Versity.com. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan, where he studied Computer Science and Film

Thank you to our Think Tank Sponsors: