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Location

Choose a city closest to you.

Sydney 2012
Applications: Feb 26, '12
Sessions: Mar 04, '12 - Jun 19, '12

Vision

Our vision is to Globalize Silicon Valley by creating and fostering local startup ecosystems in promising markets across the globe. We aim to help launch 1,000 technology companies per year in over 30 cities worldwide.

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Leaders

The Founders Institute operates in various locations worldwide. Each major location is headed by a leader, and below are the various leaders of the Institute.

Alain Baritault (Paris)

Alain is the US correspondent and columnist for PC Expert magazine, as well as editor-in-chief of Collectiv-IT e-magazine. He has previously worked as a US correspondent for several publications, the editor-in-chief at Groupe Test, and co-founder of Cités Numériques, a market research company. Alain received his MBA and completed post-grad work in computing from Université Paris Dauphine. He is interested in wireless technologies and mobility, telecom services, fiber optic infrastructures, software, e-administration, open source, and Web 2.0.

Pierre Beyssac (Paris)

Pierre is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Gandi.net, one of the first domain registrars in France. He has been in the Internet & IT industry in various technical roles and founder positions since 1993. Pierre earned his DUT in computer science from IUT d'Orsay and an engineering degree in electronics and comptuer science from École supérieure d'électricité (Supélec).

Will Bunker (Silicon Valley)

Will Bunker is the co-founder of the online dating service that became Match.com, the world’s largest personals site. In 1996 Will and a partner raised $90,000 from angel investors to start online personals pioneer One-and-Only.com. In late 1999 they sold Dallas-based One-and-Only for $45 million to Ticketmaster Online/City Search, where it was rebranded Match.com. Following his exit, Will acquired Click Patrol, a service that managed key word advertising for Overture and others, which he sold to a competitor in 2002. He then moved back to his native Arkansas and acquired an industrial catfish farming operation, which he expanded into a more efficient and profitable business. In 2004 he and Dan Owen formed White Space Ventures. In 2007 he relocated to Portola Valley, CA so he could utilize the infrastructure and talent pool in the Bay Area to develop a new student-centric online learning community, YoYoBrain.com.

Misha Chellam (Brussels)

Misha is the director of 2.0 strategy at One Laptop Per Child Europe. He is a business developer with experience across a range of sectors: entertainment, real estate, financial services, payments, and non-profits. In particular, Misha has worked as a senior consultant at Across, VP of business strategy at Home ATM, director of corporate development at Vietnam Land Group, and co-founder at Speechworks LLC. He attended Pomona College and is particularly interested in innovative technologies and/or business models, and drawn to the energy of small teams / start-ups.

Benjamin Chong (Sydney)

Benjamin is a director of a number companies including Online Marketing Group, Jetabroad, Right Click Capital, Online Agility, and SG. He previously worked in project management at Volvo and consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Benjamin graduated with a bachelor of commerce degree with honors from the University of New South Wales.

Alan Colmenares (Bogota & Medellin)

Alan moved to Latin America from the states at the age of 31 more than 10 years ago. As a Strategic Investment Manager for Intel Capital he received more than a hundred investment proposals and presented recommendations for four of these to the company's investment committee all of which were approved. He is also an avid writer about topics concerning digital innovations and has contributed articles that have been published in VentureBeat, NYTimes, VARBusiness and others. He holds a BSEE degree from Lehigh University and worked for a number of start-ups in Silicon Valley including SCO and Netmanage.

Cong Tran (Vietnam)

Cong is Vice Director of TOPICA Business Accelerator (TBA, a part of TOPICA Education Group). Previously, he served as Director at Startups Incubator .,JSC, and President at BINGO Vietnam (Business Incubation of Global Organisations, Vietnam chapter). Before that, Cong also co-founded SEE Technology (mobile store solution for telcos in Vietnam), started-up and tasted failures with several dotcom companies such as shome.vn (coupons of super markets), zee.vn (estores), blogger.vn (music social network), see.vn (mobile search). His major was International Studies at Hanoi University.

Walter De Brouwer (Brussels)

Walter is the CEO of Scanadu and CEO of One Laptop Per Child Europe, director at Tau Zero Foundation, and entrepreneur in residence at University of Cambridge. His past roles include chairman at the Royal Society of Arts Brussels, President at Fork Capital, CEO at PajamaNation, founder and CEO at Starlab, founder at Jobscape, and professor at the University of Monaco. Walter received his PhD in semiotics from the University of Tilburg and has done work at Universiteit Gent in economics and philology.

Tim Delhaes (Santiago)

Tim is a German serial and social entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in technology, networks and building businesses in Latin America. Tim is currently director for the Americas of First Tuesday an organization that he co-founded in Chile in 1999. Before dedicating to First Tuesday Tim pioneered internet businesses and successfully co-founded and let MSM Interactive, one of Latin America first web integrators and most recognized multimedia agencies to be acquired by Quebecor-Nurun. In 1998 he also co-founded Santiago.cl, a local social network that became Chile’s largest independent web during those years. In 2006 Tim co-founded Tigabytes.com, Google´s first Enterprise Partner in Latin America focusing on Enterprise Search as well as Google Apps. In 2010 Tim Delhaes stepped down as CEO to dedicate to the non-profit expansion of First Tuesday.

Jim Franklin (Denver/Boulder)

Jim is the CEO of SendGrid, the leader in email deliverability. Previously, James Franklin was the VP and General Manager of the Crystal Ball Global Business Unit and the VP for Enterprise Performance Management for Oracle Corporation. Previously Jim was the CEO of Decisioneering, Inc., CFO at Vericept Corporation and was a founder of webfamilies.com. Jim has a BBA in accounting and a JD/MBA all from the College of William and Mary. Jim is a past president and current board member of the Rockies Venture Club. Jim has also served as a mentor for Boulder Techstars and has invested in early stage startups.

Sanny Gaddafi (SaGad) (Jakarta)

Sanny (nickname: SaGad), has been a tech entrepreneur since his university days and developed the first local Social Networking site called FUPEI (Friends Uniting Program Especially Indonesian) which now has over 190,000 members. Using that experience he co-founded several social networking sites, such as a Social Networking for Moms called BundaGaul.com and a Social Networking for Sport Enthusiast called SixReps.com. Additionally, he is a graduate of the inaugural semester of the Founder Institute in Silicon Valley and earned undergraduate degrees in informatic and statistics, as well as a graduate degree in finance.

Trey Goede (St. Louis)

Trey is the founder and CEO of Affinity Wind, an independent wind energy company focused exclusively on the development of utility scale wind energy projects. He is also the co-owner of River City Internet Group, a technology and telecommunications holding company and is an adjunct professor in entrepreneurship at the Saint Louis University Business School. Previously in 1998, he was Vice President of Primary Network, which Mr. Goede helped develop into one of the nation's largest regional ISPs before raising over $50 million to fund its growth to offer local and long-distance telephone and DSL services in five states. Trey is a graduate in business management, strategic operations, and marketing from Boston College.

Jason Jacobsohn (Chicago)

Jason Jacobsohn is a master connector who is truly an advocate for the entrepreneur. Jason has worked with over 100 emerging business with services such as investor readiness preparation and coaching, strategic alignment of resources, business development, strategic advisory services, capital formation, and resource development. He has spearheaded the development of several prominent networking events in the Chicagoland area. He is the Co-Producer of the Greater Chicago Networking Extravaganza, the premier annual business networking event in downtown Chicago. Jason Earned a MBA in management and entrepreneurship from DePaul University.

Jeanine Jacobson (Los Angeles & San Diego)

Jeanine is the co-founder of FounderList, a community of Founders that share and exchange information about resources for Founders in San Diego and around the globe. She was formerly the co-founder of StatupCircle and she was also with Athena, the premier organization for executive women in technology and life sciences, where she served as executive director/President for seven years. Prior to Athena Jeanine worked in business development for a healthcare system, and for the wireless company Wind Systems. She is active in the Corporate Directors Forum and a number of other industry and professional societies in the San Diego area. Jeanine is a graduate of the University of San Diego, where she earned MBA and MSN degrees.

Bryan Janeczko (New York City)

Bryan is the founder of Wicked Start, the online startup incubator for aspiring entrepreneurs. He sold his last venture, NuKItchen- an online diet service- to Nutrisystem in late 2008. Prior to that he worked in Finance at J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley in New York. Bryan holds a B.S. from Marquette and an MBA from the Stern School of Business.

Bruno Levy (Paris)

Bruno is the partner and co-founder of Value Logic SAS, which helps companies carefully define and select their innovation investments in order to boost their grow and competitiveness in a target market. Bruno's previous positions include co-founder of SmartTrade, president and co-founder of Hypermind, worldwide product manager at ILOG, and CEO at Sobesol. He holds an engineering degree from Ecole Poytechnique, a master's degree in EE and MBA in entrepreneurship from Carnegie Melon University, and is a scholar of robotics from Tokyo University.

Brian Matthews (St. Louis)

 

Brian is a founder of River City Internet Group, an Internet holding company that focuses on software, Internet access, and hosting products. Brian is a serial entrepreneur having co-founded and assisted in the sale of the following technology companies: Primary Network to Mpower Communications, Primary Webworks to Perficient, CDM Fantasy Sports to Liberty Media, and IntraISP to Clearwire Communications. He continues to focus on investments in early stage companies and sits on a number of boards of companies in the St. Louis area. Brian graduated from the University of Missouri-Rolla with a degree in mechanical engineering.

Cao Cong Minh (Vietnam)

Cao is the co-founder and marketing director at TOPICA Education Group and a director at Amazing Wiz English. He previously worked in the investment banking industry and holds a degree in engineering from Hanoi University of technology.

Jon Nordmark (Denver/Boulder)

Jon is the co-founder of Wambo and co-founder/board member of eBags. Wambo’s "properties" are a portfolio of companies in which Wambo has become an investor, which includes UsedTunes, TrekShare, UsingMiles and a few more Web-based businesses. Jon founded eBags in 1998 and remained CEO through Spring 2008 (to 9.4 million bags sold, 1.4 million customer reviews). Previously, he held the position of senior director of product management at Samsonite, America. Jon received his B.S. in marketing from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has earned numerous awards and honors including Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Rocky Mountain Region, 2003) and the Bob Newman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colorado Software and Internet Association (2009).

Jeffrey Paine (Singapore)

Jeffrey is an executive director at Battle Ventures and a producer at Lotus Entertainment Ltd./Flutter Films, a North Asian film production and distribution company. His past career roles include general partner at General Origin, VP at Cutler Venture Partners, and investment manager at MPH Ventures. Jeffrey received his B.S. in business administration from the University of Southern California. In his spare time, Jeffrey enjoys movies, great stories, Japanese dramas, tennis, and golf.

Dave Parker (Seattle)

Dave is the CEO at Bundled the CEO of DKParker, a software and technology business consulting company. He was previously the CEO of 9Spaces, an offshore development provider. Additionally, he is the co-founder of OneAccord, and a board member/trustee for several companies. Previously, Dave has the worked as the CEO/president of License Online, director of sales at Excell Data, and Regional Manager at Nextel Communications. Dave received his B.A. in speech communication from the University of Washington, where he was an Evan’s scholar. His interests include entrepreneurship, ventures, and international business.

Tuan Pham (Vietnam)

Tuan is a serial entrepreneur and accomplished academic. He is currently the chairman of the TOPICA Education Group, president of Elite Vietnam Entertainment Group, and a steering committee member of the Asian Pacific Incubation Network. He has previously held roles in management consulting, higher education, venture capital, and software. Tuan has earned master’s degrees in business administration and information technology, and a PhD in information management.

Benjamin Ranck (Sydney)

Benjamin is the CEO of All Over Geo, a mobility platform for the wider construction industry, and a startup advisor at Blue Chilli Technology. He has previously held roles as the CTO at ChatterSpike and software engineer at Liberty Mutual. Benjamin received a bachelor's degree with honors in software engineering from the University of Sydney.

Adeo Ressi (Silicon Valley)

Adeo Ressi is Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of 12,000 CEOs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. Adeo also runs the Founder Institute, a mentoring program that helps entrepreneurs launch hundreds of world-class companies each year. The Institute is the eight start-up that Adeo has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating. He also serves on the Board of the X PRIZE foundation, a non-profit chartered to inspire human achievements through competition.

Novistiar Rustandi (Jakarta)

Novistiar is an entrepreneur with a passion for internet startups and digital businesses. He has worked in management roles at Price Waterhouse Coopers in the United States as well as Indonesi. Novistiar earned an undergraduate accounting degree, as well as dual master’s degrees in business administration and information systems development from George Washington University, and is a graduate of the inaugural semester of the Founder Institute in Silicon Valley.

Jill Stelfox (Washington, DC)

Jill Stelfox is the CFO & EVP of Corporate Development at Binary Group. Jill has run four companies, including founding two venture capital backed technology companies. She has 15 years experience in the mobile & wireless software. She is a successful serial entrepreneur, having bought & sold dozens of companies, raised over fifty million in venture capital & returned over 1000X to investors.

Mike Stemple (Denver/Boulder)

Mike currently is CEO/Founder of Mosoro which builds a developer platform that enables real-world objects to communicate with smartphone apps. Prior to cofounding Mosoro, he served as Founder and CEO of Odojo, which was acquired by SafetyWeb in July of 2010. Previous to Odojo Mike served as Founder and President of SkinIt, and Original Wraps. After leading SkinIt Inc. through two years of revenue growth and international expansion, he navigated the successful sale of the company to Global Wireless Entertainment, Inc. Mike's background also includes serving as Founder, Chairman and CEO of nReach Inc. which was purchased by SmartServ, Inc. Mike is a Colorado native, a graduate of Metropolitan State College, a sponsored athlete, a governor appointee to The Colorado Governors Council for Physical Fitness, a semi-famous artist, and a proud veteran of the US Army.

Mike Vandenbos (Seattle)

Mike is the owner of the MVP network, a golf event consulting and fundraising company which also provides marketing, sales, and consulting services. He studied theology at Multnomah Theology Seminary and business, sales, marketing, and economics at Washington State University. In his spare time he enjoys golf, travel, and mentoring/working with the homeless.

Israel Vicars (St. Louis)

Israel is the director of education and online media at AEGIS Professional Serivices and consultant at Electio Investments. He has previously been an entrepreneur and founder and has held roles in project management. Israel earned a degree in industrial and operations engineering and entrepreneurship from the University of Michigan.

Kyle Welborn (St. Louis)

Kyle is the founder of FinServe Tech Angels, an angel a group made up of financial services executives and entrepreneurs who invest in early stage financial services technology companies. These industry executives invest in high-potential technology start-ups which relate to or support the financial services industry. Kyle previously worked in as the client services manager and program manager at the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center. He graduated with from Loyola University of Chicago with a degrees in politics and economics.

Andy Zain (Jakarta)

Andy is CEO of PT Numedia Global, pioneering the new mobile VAS industry in Indonesia, with a focus on distribution, discovery, engagement and payment in the mobile sector. He has 15 years in the mobile & ICT businesses - launched the first mobile content provider and ringtone business, and pioneered the "old" mobile VAS businesses, which is now an annual USD 1.2B industry in Indonesia. He earned a BSBA degree in marketing and an MBA.

Gabe Zichermann (New York City)

Gabe is the editor of Gamification.Co and the chair of the Gamification Summit. He has previously held roles as the founder and CEO of beamMe, an SMS information service company, the CMO at Boonty, a digital gaming solutions company; the VP of strategy and communication for Trymedia Systems, and director of marketing in the game and web division at CMP Media. Gabe is an expert, author, speaker and writer on the subject of gamification and engagement mechanics. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a BIS in human intelligence/gifted kids/statistics and received his MBA from Rollins College. Outside of work, Gabe is endlessly fascinated by food and travel.

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