IOP Fall Forum 2022

WELCOME TO THE METAVERSE AND THE DECENTRALIZED WORLD

The IOP Fall Forum will take members on a journey into a future shaped by the enterprise metaverse, Web 3.0, decentralized platforms and NFTs as an investment and ownership vehicle for businesses. Already global enterprises are pioneering metaverse environments on a massive scale. Digital twin projects are delivering virtual headquarters and other enterprise locations and functions. Extended virtual environments are being used as innovation spaces for R&D and testing environments. Biotech companies are using metaverse interfaces in basic molecular science.

What is the future for our businesses in this new world of metaverse, Web 3.0, blockchain decentralized ledgers, and NFTs as drivers of enterprise investment and ownership? These are early days for the enterprise in using the next-gen, immersive internet.

IOP members will gather at UC San Diego’s new Design and Innovation Building, an innovation center developed in partnership with the community to accelerate innovation, offer support for entrepreneurs, and generate ideas and multi-disciplinary solutions to better society. Throughout this exciting event, in-person attendees will enjoy immersive experiences with live VR demonstrations, a design and innovation showcase to tap into the latest in entrepreneurship, research and technology, and plenty of intentional opportunities to engage in open discussions and networking with your peers in this inspiring learning environment.

Trisha Williams is the CEO of Origami Air, a virtual reality production company based in San Diego, CA which focuses on bringing new communities together around simulated travel, future foresight, and aspirational collective imagination. Trisha is a leading voice in VR World Building and creative infrastructure industries. Since graduating with a Master’s in Interactive Technology from The Guildhall at SMU, Trisha has spent the last 15 years building 3D worlds in the video game and innovation industries. As a leader in creating immersive spaces, Trisha has collaborated with The USC Cinema World Building Media Lab, Marion Ewing Kauffman Foundation, Sundance New Frontiers, and is currently working in affiliation with the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination and UCSD Innovation.

Dr. Tom Furness is a pioneer in human interface technology and grandfather of virtual reality. Tom is currently a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering with adjunct professorships in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington. He is the founder of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab) at UW and the founder of the Virtual World Society dedicated to bringing together heart and mind through virtual reality to solve pervasive problems in the world.

Prior to joining the faculty at the UW, Tom served a combined 23 years as an U.S. Air Force officer and civilian scientist at the Armstrong Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he developed advanced cockpits and virtual interfaces for the Department of Defense. He is the inventor of the personal eyewear display, the virtual retinal display, the HALO display and holds 19 patents in advanced sensor, display and interface technologies. With his colleagues Dr. Furness has started 27 companies, two of which are traded on NASDAQ at a market capitalization of > $8 B (USD).

Venture Capitalist, Innovation Ecosystem Architect, author, serial entrepreneur, public speaker and adviser to international and domestic organizations and governments. Unique expertise at the intersection of high-impact start-up investment + mentorship, innovation-based economic development, capital formation, policy, strategy, technology transfer and commercialization. Co-founder of a leading innovation think tank, and prior experience as a senior executive for Fortune 500 company. Extensive for-profit and not-for-profit board experience.

Cassandra Vieten is Director of Research and Associate Scientist at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Executive Director of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation, co-founder and Clinical Psychology Director at the Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative at UCSD, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. She is a licensed clinical psychologist. Her research has focused on spirituality and health, transformative experiences and practices, the development of mindfulness-based interventions for emotional well-being, and development of media technologies to inspire awe. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She was a Scientist at the Mind-Body Medicine Research Group for 12 years, and worked at the Institute of Noetic Sciences for 18 years. She has authored three books and has published numerous articles in scientific journals.

Dr. Viirre specializes in neurotology (diagnosis and outpatient treatment of vertigo, balance disorders, and tinnitus). He has been with the UCSD Department of Surgery, Division of Otolaryngology since 1998. A member of numerous scientific boards, Dr. Viirre is also an Associate Research Professor in the UCSD Department of Cognitive Science and the Director of the Applied Cognitive Science Laboratory at the Naval Health Research Center, San Diego.

As a biomedical researcher and neurophysiologist, Dr. Viirre’s interests include investigation of the origin and management of vertigo and tinnitus, including management of vertigo with virtual reality techniques. He has carried out clinical trials on medical assessment and treatment of neurotologic disorders such as benign positional vertigo and migraine, and has been working on development of a tinnitus therapy program for patients. He also collaborates with cognitive scientists and engineers in the development of systems to assess cognitive state during human-computer interactions.

Jonathon Paden is a Postdoctoral researcher and artist in residence at the Arthur C.Clarke Center for Human Imagination within UC San Diegos Calit2. Paden specializes in Cloud based Extended Reality(XR) tools for sciences and leads the ARNO project. He is a classically trained sculpture and often combines these skills with research projects to build XR research technologies to create unique artistic interludes. Paden’s current research is a distributed means of creating a free and open academic “metaverse” or cyberspace. Paden is housed in academia where the teaches, creates, researches, and builds; with a special focus on composing interdisciplinary teams from across fields to tackle complex system problems in embodiable cyberspace.

Working with the Vice Chancellor for Research, Dr. Roben is transforming the functions provided by the Technology Transfer Office, Industry Research Alliances, and Industry Contracting into an integrated organization to include patenting, strategic corporate research partnering and industry contracts. He oversees the Office of Innovation and Commercialization, which will establish a campus-wide innovation platform to build a systemic and sustainable innovation culture, create a vibrant regional ecosystem, and accelerate the commercialization of UC San Diego inventions.

Previously he was Senior Director of Office Technology Development at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, working with multiple academic institutes to develop strategic processes to drive innovation alliances, and help translate their research programs into products for patients and society. He guided the formation of multiple new start-up companies and was responsible for the negotiation of a broad spectrum of technology licenses to industry.

As a key member of Ireland’s Innovation Taskforce (2009 to present), he co-authored a national economic-development plan for Ireland, among other achievements.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biotechnology, as well as his Ph.D., at Dublin City University in Ireland, and studied as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Greg Silverman at UC San Diego.

Steeve is Chief Marketing Officer at Irdeto. He is a seasoned cybersecurity executive with nearly 20 years of experience in building products, driving engagement and revenue within the cybersecurity domain. Steeve has wealth of market knowledge and experience in the video entertainment, mobile gaming and connected industries such as healthcare and transport. Steeve holds a Master’s degree in Software Engineering and is well-versed in the international business landscape, having held key strategic positions in the Netherlands, Canada and China throughout his career. Prior to his current leadership role at Irdeto, Steeve was Co-Chief Executive Officer at International Datacasting Corporation (IDC), a technology provider to the world’s premiere broadcasters in Canada.

Raja Al Mazrouei is a visionary and influential leader within the finance and technology sectors. Her entrepreneurial spirit and passion for progression have been the driving force behind her achievements and continue to fuel her ambition to help reinforce the UAE’s position as an innovation destination on the global stage.
With over a decade of experience in the Technology and Finance sector, Raja developed an ecosystem for financial technology entrepreneurs in Dubai, a primary contributor in naming the emirate one of the top ten global FinTech hubs. In addition, her marketing & communications expertise has enabled her to bring brands to life and foster communities to create business opportunities and societal impact.
Today, Raja stands at the helm of one of the region’s most successful financial technology hubs and has contributed significantly to building a vibrant and dynamic community of over 500 FinTech, RegTech, and InsurTech startups through the different innovation and acceleration programs.
As Executive Vice President of FinTech Hive, she brings together government entities, financial institutions, technology partners, and entrepreneurs to realize a common goal of collaboration, co-creation, and shaping the future of financial services.

Brittan Heller works at the intersection of law, technology, and human rights. She specializes in VR/AR/XR and social media - advising on the Metaverse, privacy, content moderation, online harassment, freedom of expression, ESG, AI ethics, disinformation, civic engagement, cyberbullying and hate speech, and online extremism.

Heller was counsel with Foley Hoag's Global Business and Human Rights practice and ran the Global AI practice group. She was the first Director for Technology and Society for ADL and established ADL's Center for Technology and Society, to bring civil rights into a digital environment and leverage innovations like AI, VR and gaming to promote justice and fair treatment for all.

Heller formerly served in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She investigated and prosecuted genocide, war crimes, human smuggling, and international fraud. Heller also served as the Computer Hacking and IP Coordinator, gaining specific expertise in cybercrime and electronic evidence. In addition, she also handled DOJ's interagency policy work, including at the Atrocities Prevention Board at the White House.

Linda A. Hill is regarded as one of the top experts on leadership and innovation. Hill is the co-author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press 2014), co-founder of Paradox Strategies, and co-creator of the Innovation Quotient and re:Route. She was named by Thinkers50 as one of the top ten management thinkers in the world in 2013 and 2021 and received the Thinkers50 Innovation Award in 2015.

Hill’s research focuses on leadership development, building agile, innovative organizations, and implementing global strategies. Her current research focuses on scaling innovation and digital leadership. She is the author of highly regarded books and articles on leadership. Collective Genius was named by Business Insider as one of “The 20 Best Business Books” and received the Gold Medal for the Leadership Axiom Business Book Award. Hill’s TED talk on how to manage for collective creativity has more than 2.6 million views.

Nicola Rosa (Nick to his friends) knows all about Experiential learning—better yet, “immersive learning”—which is some of what the Extended Reality (XR) practice at Accenture is involved in. Nick is an innovation strategist, experience designer and digital transformation expert with more than 15 years of experience defining and delivering complex digital solutions. He’s now part of a team in Europe that sees immersive learning emerging as a means by which future workforces will get much of their training. And we’re already seeing examples of it now.

Mance Harmon is the Co-founder of Hedera, and Co-founder and Co-CEO of Swirlds Labs. His prior experience includes serving as the Head of Architecture and Labs at Ping Identity, Founder and CEO of two tech startups, the senior executive for product security at a $1.7B revenue organization, Program Manager for a very-large scale software program for the Missile Defense Agency, the Course Director for Cybersecurity at the US Air Force Academy, and research scientist in Machine Learning at Wright Laboratory. Mance received a MS in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts and a BS in Computer Science from Mississippi State University.

Dr. Leemon Baird is the inventor of the hashgraph distributed consensus algorithm, Co-founder of Hedera, and Co-founder and Co-CEO of Swirlds Labs. With over 20 years of technology and startup experience, he has held positions as a Professor of Computer Science at the US Air Force Academy and as a senior scientist in several labs. He has been the Co-Founder of several startups, including two identity-related startups, both of which were acquired. Leemon received his PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and has multiple patents and publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences in computer security, machine learning, and mathematics.

Andrew Gastwirth is the Chief Innovation Officer at DLA Piper. He has 30 years of experience developing enterprise strategy and delivering solutions across Fortune 500 companies and Public Sector Agencies. Andrew came to DLA Piper in 2017 to drive the Digital Transformation strategy at the firm and to reimagine the legal industry by adopting emerging technologies and new approaches to delivering legal and consulting services. Andrew and his team at DLA Piper are currently implementing Cloud, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, and Environmental/Social/Governance platforms to help the firm, their clients and their client's customers gain competitive advantages in their respective industries. He is the technical lead for the DLA Piper TOKO asset-tokenization platform, a Council Member of Hedera, and a Co-Chair on the Hedera Corporate Utilization Committee. Before arriving at DLA Piper, Andrew was a Digital Advisor at Microsoft. He delivered Office 365, Blockchain, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence solutions to customers in various industries including Financial Services, Energy, the Defense Industrial Base and Public Sector.

Emily Tedards is a Doctoral Student in the Organizational Behavior program jointly offered by Harvard Business School and the Department of Sociology at Harvard University.

Emily is interested in the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and socio-economic development, particularly how public and private actors build and leverage ecosystems to scale their impact. She currently investigates how cross-sector ecosystems innovate, learn, and evolve over time, and how they create, measure, and share value. She also researches the role of the state in enabling ecosystems to flourish.

Prior to beginning her PhD, Emily conducted qualitative research on multi-national companies, start-ups, and non-profits across the globe as a Research Associate for Harvard Business School. She has co-authored Harvard Business School case studies and articles on leadership, innovation ecosystems, digital and cultural transformation, and corporate accelerators and innovation labs. She is currently co-authoring a book on leading and scaling innovation.

Elliott Potter is a co-founder and chief executive officer at Linq, a networking technology startup. Prior to launching Linq, Elliott was a founding team member at Shipt, a grocery delivery startup that was acquired by Target in 2017.

Elliott began his career as employee #10 at unicorn delivery startup Shipt, where he opened new markets and worked as a software engineer. In 2019 he and two others founded Linq, a no-code landing page builder for businesses and entrepreneurs. Linq has a global customer base and is backed by some of the most influential investors and operators in silicon valley, including Bill Smith of Shipt and Landing, and former Sequoia partner Omar Hamoui.

Derek is CEO at Corl Financial Technologies and CTO at Railz. Prior to this he was the Start-up Advisor at The BlockchainHub and worked as a financial risk and statistical consultant, and was otherwise known as "The Quant from Canada." He lead the quant team at KPMG in Financial Risk Management and worked with over 3 dozen financial institutions solving problems in risk management and financial technology. In 2019, he was recognized as a Top 25 Leader in Lending by the Canadian Lenders Association.

Personally, Derek is passionate about the applications of quantitative methods and advanced technologies. He enjoys solving problems, is motivated by social and environmental causes, and has a strong bias towards reducing human error through intelligent automation.

Steve McCloskey is an Alumni from the first class of Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego. Steve’s work is focused on emerging technologies applied to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

During his time at UC San Diego Steve worked directly with the founding Chair of the Nanoengineering Department, Ken Vecchio helping set the foundation for the Nanoengineering Materials Research Center and developing thermodynamic processing methods for Iron-based Superelastic alloys.

After graduating from UCSD he founded Nanome Inc to build Virtual Reality solutions for Scientists and Engineers working at the nanoscale, specifically protein engineering and small molecule drug development.

Bob is the CEO and co-founder of Everest, a licensed crypto custodian with its own high-speed blockchain, and the world’s first global, programmable stablecoin. Everest offers its users global fiat-in/out to crypto, a portfolio of financial services, including crypto trading with an access to 200+ coin pairs, international remittances, earning and borrowing, foreign exchange, and staking. Its unique biometrics-based digital identity platform empowers users to digitally verify their identity, and selectively share proofs, credentials, and attributes.

Bob was an advisor to Kai Labs, a blockchain-focused think tank & accelerator that brought together entrepreneurs, corporations, domain experts and investment capital to advance the development of distributed systems & applications for a wide range of vertical markets. Previously, Bob was the General Manager of Licensing at BitTorrent, and VP of Strategy & Business Development at Neulion and DivX.

Dr. Michael Ku is Vice President of Global Clinical Supply (GCS) within the Medicinal Sciences organization of Pfizer’s Worldwide Research, Development and Medical. Michael has over 25 years of biopharmaceutical experience and currently provides strategic leadership for clinical supply chain functions in support of Pfizer’s clinical trials in over 70 countries. His intellectual curiosity and focus on technology and innovation drive his passion to lead the global clinical supply chain to deliver breakthroughs to patients, especially with the COVID-19 vaccine program.

Prior to joining Pfizer, Michael was the Global Head and Vice President of Clinical Pharmacy Research Services (CPRS) at Genzyme Corporation. He also held several roles of increasing responsibility at Astra Pharmaceuticals (currently AstraZeneca) and Novopharm Limited (currently Teva Canada Limited) in the areas of Clinical Research, Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance.

Having a deep appreciation for talent development and motivated by helping Pfizer colleagues thrive, Michael shares his leadership skills with a focus on diversity and inclusion by serving as the Executive Leader of the Global Asian Alliance Enterprise Colleague Resource Group (GAA ECRG).

Inspired by helping to unleash the potential for pharmacists globally at Pfizer, Michael also serves as an Executive Sponsor for the Pfizer Pharmacy Association (PPA) and founded the Pfizer/MCPHS Biopharmaceutical Fellowship Program as its Program Director and Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at MCPHS University.

Michael currently serves as an Advisor to the Board of Directors of Excir Corporation (www.excir.com) and the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers (www.ispe.org). He chairs the Clinical Supply Leadership Forum (CSLF) and is a founding member of the Innovation Outreach Program (IOP). In 2018, he received the prestigious Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award.

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