Speakers and Advisors

Pano is CEO of Hangout Industries, creator of the world's first casual and immersive 3D social networking experience that allows teens and young adults to create and customize their own virtual rooms featuring real brand-name products, and where their friends can join them in a safe and secure environment, to hang out and have fun together. Pano is a veteran executive in the technology space, having served previously from 2003 to 2006 as Founder, President and CEO of Pantero, developer of breakthrough technology for enterprise data exchange. Prior to his association with Pantero, Pano served as President and CEO of EcoNovo, where, over 18 years, he built the company to the leading position in the global commerce/ITL space. Part of the fun of working at Hangout, is that Pano is the father of three kids who help provide their own helpful opinions and suggestions to dad.

As director of consumer insights for AMP Agency, an Alloy Media + Marketing Company, Allison helps guide a range of clients, such as American Eagle, Ben & Jerry's and Macy's in the development of marketing, promotion and communication strategies that are grounded in consumer insights. Allison brings a decade of experience in market research to her work, including previous roles as associate research director at The Concours Group. Allison's research savvy, combined with her keen interest and passion for youth and pop culture—including an on-going obsession with MTV and Facebook—has made her a valuable asset to AMP's clients.

Spencer has been fortunate to work at some of the most creative agencies in the world. He began his career at Mad Dogs and Englishmen in New York, working with clients such as Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink, MovieFone and BMG. While he was there, Mad Dogs was voted the best small agency in the U.S. In 2002, Spencer joined Fallon Minneapolis and took Citibank from a commodity to an emotional brand with the advertising campaign of the year — the beloved "Identity Theft" campaign. In 2004 he joined Fallon NY, spending his days and nights launching the Virgin Mobile brand in the U.S. through a series of cutting-edge youth campaigns. Since founding Virtue Worldwide, VICE's in-house marketing and creative services agency, Spencer has led strategic and creative duties for adidas, PUMA, MTV, Harmonix (Rock Band), edun LIVE (Bono and Ali Hewson's fashion brand) Nokia, Beck"s and Colt 45.

A music enthusiast, Anthony combined his entrepreneurial spirit with his passion for content and technology to create a successful career building and designing web and digital media products. Prior to Buzznet, Anthony served as Chief Technology Officer for Metapa (now Greenplum), where he raised $17 million in financing and helped develop the company's proprietary software product. He worked for Time Inc. as the Manager of Internet Publishing, where he was responsible for the day-to-day publishing of Fortune.com, Time.com, People.com, Teenpeople.com, Money.com and ET.com. Anthony was also instrumental in the development and launch of his friend Craig Newmark's site, Craigslist, helping to take it from its original format – an email list to acquaintances – to an online destination that has since become a global leader.

Jeff Bishop is co-founder of Reach Messaging which specializes in interactive instant messaging applications targeting youth. Receiving his Master's degree in Economics from the University of Texas Jeff was a founding partner of Beacon Equity Research along with several other businesses. He has performed consulting for a wide variety of business start-ups and has been a writer for several prominent online financial websites.

As Strategic Analyst at the youth-focused qualitative research firm Outlaw Consulting, Holly is an expert at decoding her own generation. She knows how young people think, what they see as cool, and why it matters for corporations. The bulk of her research at Outlaw focuses on Gen Y "trendsetters," the forward consumers that the firm uses to understand how the mainstream will evolve in the future. Her clients have included Levi's, Diageo and Converse. Prior to joining Outlaw in 2004, Holly received a BA in English from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in writing from Columbia University.

Manish serves as the CEO of Kaboodle, the social shopping community where people discover, recommend and share products. Launched in 2006, Kaboodle has 550,000 registered users and over 7 million monthly visitors. The company was acquired by Hearst Corporation in 2007. Previously, Manish served as vice president of worldwide marketing at Versant Corporation. In 2000, he helped take Versata public as the vice president of marketing and product strategy. Prior to joining Versata, he held various positions at Sybase and Intel. Manish holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, an MS in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India.

Daniel is the founder of SurveyU, an online community and data collection platform targeting North American students. Daniel was vice president of sales for Polimetrix, vice president of SPSS Online and a co-founder of PlanetFeedback.com. A pioneer of interactive technologies within the marketing community,the first decade of Dan’s career spanned the founding of interactive divisions at Burke, Millward Brown and the Angus Reid Group.

myYearbook is Geoff's third multi-million dollar Internet enterprise, all grown from zero traffic and zero revenue to significant market-leading properties. In 1997, at age 19, Geoff founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a Harvard dorm room. His Wired feature story outing himself as a dorm room entrepreneur helped lead Harvard to lift its centuries-old ban on dorm room entrepreneurship. Geoff later sold his company to The Thomson Corporation. He departed Thomson in 2005 to join forces with myYearbook's teenage founders— Catherine Cook, age 15, and David Cook, age 16 -- Geoff's sister and brother. Geoff was instrumental in raising $8 million in angel financing, venture capital, and venture debt to build the young company into the U.S. teen social networking leader.

Heidi is a proven, patented innovator in everything from game technologies to cell phones to tampons. The only female robotics student in Princeton's doctorate program, she left Princeton and robotics to pioneer girl-focused media and marketing. She began by leading Sega's first initiatives to create video games for girls. Three years ago, after recognizing how elusive the females remained to the marketing industry, Heidi launched 3iying, an all-millennial girl innovation think tank. She and her girl team work with major brands, giving them the insights, creative concepts and strategies they need to succeed with future generations—they call it "girlapproved" marketing. Heidi has been a design judge for the Industrial Design Association, American Institute of Graphic Arts, Advertising Association and the Webbys, among others, and is widely published every design discipline. Heidi and her team also write a regular column for BusinessWeek.

Mike has been examining customer capital and business model innovations with nGenera for the past decade. He currently is leading "Net Generation: Talent 2.0," a syndicated study on how youths operate as employees and consumers and in recent years has participated in five multi-client research programs including "The Net Generation Strategic Investigation" and "Information Technology and Competitive Advantage." He is a regular commentator about technology and society and has contributed to numerous business publications. A prominent mentor to young professionals in Ontario, Mike contributes to the eBusiness curricula at Wilfrid Laurier University and the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, where he earned his business degrees.

Ron is responsible for managing Virgin Mobile USA's events and sponsorships, mobile advertising and cause-related marketing initiatives, including The RE*Generation, an initiative committed to ending youth homelessness. He is also responsible for the Virgin Mobile Festival franchise, Virgin Mobile's largest marketing initiative. Prior to joining Virgin Mobile, Ron was instrumental in building content licensing deals focusing on mobile platforms, interactive TV and in-game music development at Atari. Ron began his career working at Accenture in their telecommunications and media and entertainment consulting practices. He later joined Scient (now SBI Razorfish), where he managed digital marketing initiatives. Ron's award-winning short films and documentaries have exhibited at several film festivals and cable networks, including HBO.

Jordan is the 26 year-old founder and CEO of Unigo.com. Pre-launch, and focusing on America’s top 250 colleges, Jordan started a nationwide grassroots movement to get current students to create long-form reviews, photos, videos, documents, articles and more about their schools. More than 15,000 students participated, and more than 30,000 pieces of original content were created. Jordan studied English literature at Wesleyan University and Oxford University, and previously created Students' Guide to Colleges, a series of college guidebooks that was released in multiple editions from Penguin Books.

Anastasia is an award-winning blogger and often-quoted expert on American tweens, teens and early twentysomethings. Her blog, Ypulse.com, reaches a highly influential audience of agency, brand and media executives as well as social marketers trying to reach youth. The blog has been featured in several leading publications including USA Today, BusinessWeek, Forbes and Fast Company. Anastasia was one of the first graduates of the Medill School of Journalism's new media program at Northwestern University, where she earned an MSJ in 1999. Her first book about teens and technology, Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online, was published by St. Martin's Press in 2007.

Dan is charged with building upon the strong growth that MTV.com has experienced this year, delivering integrated experiences that link programming across all screens, furthering music programming on MTV.com and leading new product development in the digital space. An expert in developing online products, strategies and businesses, Dan previously served as vice president of online games strategy and operations for MTV Networks, which he joined in 2004. He led the team that developed game play properties across multiple MTVN sites, and created games based on shows including "The Real World," "Pimp My Ride" and "Two-A-Days" on MTV.com; "Flavor of Love" and "World Series of Pop Culture" on VH1.com; "Trick My Truck" on CMT.com and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "South Park" on ComedyCentral.com. He also has played a central role in several key acquisitions and deals for MTV Networks. Previously, Dan oversaw Yahoo! Games and worked for MTV Networks' parent company, Viacom, where he was the vice president of planning and development for new media, working to define and implement Internet strategy for MTV Networks, Blockbuster, Paramount, Showtime and Simon and Schuster. Dan holds a BA and an MBA from the University of Michigan and a master's degree in education from Columbia University.

After graduating from Penn State's Smeal College of Business, Ryan spent a year working as a consultant with IBM Global Business Services, where he developed an interest in human resources and recruiting as they related to Generation Y. After six months at IBM, he decided to make his voice heard and founded the Generation Y career blog Employee Evolution, with his former college roommate, Ryan Paugh. The blog was covered in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and BusinessWeek, and Ryan was featured as a spokesperson for Generation Y on CBS's 60 Minutes. In September 2007, he left IBM and moved to Wisconsin to start Brazen Careerist. Outside of technology, blogging, and new media, Ryan has a passion for family, friends, jogging, reading, Chipotle burritos and all things Boston Sports.

Nadira is a writer at Fortune, where she authored the widely discussed 2007 cover story about Generation Y's impact on corporate America. Nadira was a recipient of the 2007 NewsBios 30 Under 30 award for business journalists, and has been a featured personality on shows such as HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher and CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch. Now a sought after speaker, the former MTV News writer and proud alum of urban lifestyle startup Savoy magazine has a BA in English from Stanford University, where she edited The Stanford Daily. A would-be poet, sometime bartender and professional sports fan, Nadira calls downtown Manhattan home.

As the senior web editor at Seventeen, Julie works with both the web and edit staff to develop original, and interactive content for an online teen audience. Additionally, Julie works with Hearst Digital Media to assist in the development of content across the Hearst Teen Network. After graduating from BU, Julie officially entered the online world as an online editor for AOL RED, America Online's teen channel, where she worked as a blogger and on-screen personality. In 2006, Julie moved to New York to start as the senior associate Web editor at seventeen.com. After one year and one giant redesign, she was promoted to senior web editor where she launched the much-buzzed-about Editor's Assistant Game.

Jason and his partners launched the Animoto platform in August 2007. A web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos, each video is a customized orchestration of images and music (no stock music, no elevator music) selected by the user. Animoto has become a popular tool with YouTube and Facebook members, businesses and musicians. Earlier this year, Animoto launched Animoto for Education, which gives K-12 teachers free unlimited access to Animoto's services. Prior to founding Animoto, Jason was as a New York-based television producer. He is the creator and co-executive producer of "Dirty Stinkin' Politics," a political series for Comedy Central and he produced Comedy Central's "The Showbiz Show" with David Spade. Other major credits include the 2006 VH1 Big In 06 Awards, MTV's "Viva La Bam," MTV2's "Stankervision," the 2002 and 2003 MTV Video Music Awards and Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd" and "Crank Yankers." He graduated from Dartmouth College and has a prior career as a consultant specializing in data-driven business strategy. Jason proposed to his girlfriend with an Animoto video. Despite this, she said yes.

Scott is a journalist who writes about innovation, with a special focus on the ways that new technologies are changing the entertainment industry. His column, "Innovation Economy," appears in the Boston Globe every Sunday and he maintains the column's companion blog at innoeco.com. He also writes regularly for Variety and has been a contributing writer for Fast Company, BusinessWeek and Wired. He edits the blog CinemaTech, which focuses on how new technologies are changing the way movies get made, discovered, marketed, distributed, shown and seen. His most recent book, Inventing the Movies, was published earlier this year, following the publication of The Future of Web Video: New Opportunities for Producers, Entrepreneurs, Media Companies and Advertisers in 2007. Scott has participated on panels at the Sundance Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Harvard Business School Entertainment and Media Conference. He holds a bachelor's degree from the Boston University College of Communication.

SocialVibe effectively brings brands into social media by empowering people to interact with the brands and the causes of their choice. SocialVibe is Series A funded by Redpoint Ventures. Prior to co-founding SocialVibe, Joe built and led the online media strategy division at a boutique management consulting firm. He developed and guided the group to provide Fortune 1000 clientele research and online strategy development focused on digital media. He began his career as a business analyst for Monster Worldwide, the parent company of Monster.com. A thought leader in the social media and advertising industry, Joe writes weekly for MediaPost publications and has contributed as an expert on new media to national publications including BusinessWeek, the New York Post and the Boston Globe. He has keynoted at a number of digital advertising and media summits including OMMA, iMedia and Digital Hollywood.

Jessie is a 16 year old from Connecticut who is passionate about the environment. She became involved with environmental activities when she attended the UNEP Tunza International Children's Conference on the Environment in 2004. At the 2005 conference in Japan, Jessie was elected the North American Junior Board Representative for the 2006 conference in Malaysia. She co-founded Green Teens at her high school, receiving a $1,000 grant from Youth Venture to fund some of the group's early projects. In 2008 she became a Youth Venture Ambassador, reaching out to young environmentalists worldwide!

At NGT (Next Great Thing), the insights arm of Fleishman-Hillard's Youth and Mobile Marketing practice, Allison tracks youth-driven wireless trends and innovations that are changing the communications industry around the world. Allison is also a regular contributor to the trends blog at PSFK.com and has written for Radar, Glamour and Stereotype, among other publications. Before joining Fleishman-Hillard, she worked at Details Magazine as assistant to the editor-in-chief and staff writer, and at Random House in the Doubleday Broadway marketing department. Allison holds her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, where she studied English, psychology and French, and attended the publishing course at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

As a first-wave Millennial herself, Reena brings a first-hand perspective to her work at LifeCourse Associates, a marketing, HR and strategic planning consultancy founded by generational experts Neil Howe and William Strauss. Reena helps coordinate research, publications and consulting to give readers and audiences powerful insights into today's generation of youth, how they interact with each other and how they will shape our national future. She is a contributing author to Howe and Strauss's Millennials Go to College and Millennials in K-12 Schools as well as Millennials in the Workplace, soon to be released. Reena holds a BA from Swarthmore College.

Stephen has been a leading mobile computing entrepreneur for over 15 years. He is founder and chief executive of Boston based LocaModa, a technology company that provides an interactive media platform enabling people to access and control media in favorite places and online. Previously, he restructured Psion, where he was the architect of the company's licensing strategy, to form Psion Software. As joint president, he helped build the global licensing business that was spun out to form Symbian. During this period, he also advised the European Parliament on roadmaps for pervasive computing as the chairman of the Ambient Computing Working Group. Previously, he was a founder of Eden Group, the pen-based computing company that was later acquired by Geoworks. Stephen also developed the world's first digital guitar, for which he received a British Design Award from HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Robin has spent the past 30 years exploring what it means to be a family in a digital world. Most recently she is the founder of Kids@Play and The Silvers Summit, a set of conferences and exhibitions in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association. She's the former editor of PC Magazine, editor in chief of FamilyPC and blogger for Yahoo!Tech. She's been a columnist for USA Today Online and has authored six books about parenting in the digital age. Her latest book is The Parents' Guide to College Life. Robin lectures to groups around the country on topics including internet safety and parenting college aged kids. Robin lives in an empty nest with her husband, with frequent visits from three far-flung college graduates. An early proponent of social networks, you can find her lurking on most.

A marketing and R&D veteran in the Internet and mobile services industries, Sarig brings a unique approach to international marketing programs and communications innovations. The mobile-to-web broadcasting technology by Flixwagon allows users to stream live, quality video from a mobile phone directly to the Web and broadcast to individuals and groups, their blogs, social networks and video sites. Prior to co-founding MyFrame, Sarig held senior positions at BVR Systems, Odigo and Comverse Americas, where he was responsible for product marketing with a focus on bringing in tier-one accounts such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Gary is founder and President of GTR Consulting, a San Francisco market research firm specializing in qualitative and quantitative analysis among kids, teens, twenty-somethings, and their parents. He is also the author of the acclaimed gTrend Report, a national survey of young people that examines the complex relationship between teens and technology. Gary worked as a planner for Foote, Cone and Belding and J. Walter Thompson. Gary also spent five years as Director of Qualitative Research with Teenage Research Unlimited. For the past 15 years he has consulted and conducted research for clients in virtually every category including retail, fashion, packaged goods, personal care products, Web site planning and design, print media, beverages, video games, as well as social marketing. Gary lives in Mill Valley, California with his wife, their daughter, and two sons.

Janet is responsible for creating the strategic vision, product marketing and marketing communications at Experience, a career network that partners with universities to connect millions of candidates from 3,800 colleges and universities with employers. Before joining Experience, Janet served as vice president of marketing at Genuity, a provider of Internet services to enterprises. Prior to that, she spent eight years with GTE/BBN, where she held numerous senior positions and helped BBN's Internet business to grow from $5 million to $1 billion in revenues. Janet holds a BA in chemistry from The Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

As Nokia Interactive Advertising's senior mobile strategist, Thi Linh leads brand strategy for the United States, helping brands fulfill the potential of engaging the consumer via mobile. Thi Linh previously was vice president in the digital group at Boston-based agency Hill Holliday, where she headed the mobile marketing offering as well as broader digital services. Her work to help clients find new ways to connect with audiences through mobile led to several awards, including a 2007 MITX award for Best Use of Mobile for "Text-a-Tip," the first anonymous text tip line in the United States, created for the Boston Police Department and its Crime Stoppers program. Thi Linh's extensive experience over the past decade with large brands and integrated communications enables her to strategically extend campaigns beyond the confines of traditional media into the mobile channel. She was named to the 2008 Boston Business Journal "40 Under 40" list and holds a bachelor's degree in accountancy from the University of Notre Dame.

Saaret is a writer and Washington D.C. native. In 2007 she earned a BA from the University of Maryland, where she majored in English with a minor in Africana Studies. After graduating, Saaret worked for five months in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as a columnist for The Reporter, where she penned "Chronicles of a Diaspora Kid," a weekly piece for the publication's arts and entertainment section. Now back in the States, Saaret works as editorial assistant at The Root.com, the daily online magazine that aims to raise the profile of black voices in mainstream media and engage anyone interested in black culture around the world. As a contributing writer for the site she has covered diverse topics on cultural and social issues. Recent articles include "Extra Baggage on a Trip Home" about traveling to her parents' native Ethiopia, "Where Swagger Meets Stoicism," on portrait artist Kehinde Wiley, and "Gen-Y and the Colorblind Lie," discussing the misconceptions about her generation's perspective on race.

Kenneth Elmore has been Dean of Students at Boston University since August 2003. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Dean Elmore has over 20 years of experience in higher education administration. Dean Elmore previously served as associate director in the Office of Residence Life at Boston University for over 11 years. He also practiced law in the Boston area, specializing in legal issues involving education. Dean Elmore is especially interested in issues surrounding community development and social justice, and seeks to motivate students to explore such topics through programming and initiatives sponsored by his office. He is a graduate of Brown University, Boston University and the New England School of Law.

Steve is the founder and executive director of The National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS). In 1994, Steve founded NSCS to recognize students who had done well academically during their first years in college and to provide members with an opportunity to be honored and involved in an organization devoted to scholarship, integrity and service. NSCS has more than 225 chapters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Its membership consists of 160,000 current undergraduate students and 400,000 alumni members. Steve was recently elected president of the Association of College Honor Societies, the only certifying organization for collegiate honor societies.

Chris is responsible for mtvU's marketing operations and business development efforts, including overall marketing strategy, cultivation of key strategic partnerships and growth of the network's consumer products portfolio. He served as project lead on the acquisition and integration of the College Media Network and RateMyProfessors.com. He also managed the launch of BestMusiconCampus.com, mtvU's online "farm system" for the best unsigned college acts in the country, and Darfur is Dying, a viral video game for change that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. In addition, he is responsible for the production of mtvU/MTV Video Music Award Show Tour, mtvU's Spring Break, Campus Invasion Music Festival and a host of other events.

At NGT (Next Great Thing), the insights arm of Fleishman-Hillard's Youth and Mobile Marketing practice, Allison tracks youth-driven wireless trends and innovations that are changing the communications industry around the world. Allison is also a regular contributor to the trends blog at PSFK.com and has written for Radar, Glamour and Stereotype, among other publications. Before joining Fleishman-Hillard, she worked at Details Magazine as assistant to the editor-in-chief and staff writer, and at Random House in the Doubleday Broadway marketing department. Allison holds her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, where she studied English, psychology and French, and attended the publishing course at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.