Jon Peddie Research - a technically oriented marketing, research, and management consulting firm in the graphics industry.

Gerry Blank, Director, Graphics Software Engineering, 3D/Compute Driver Development Company: Intel Corporation

Gerry leads the Direct3D, OpenGL and OpenCL software engineering teams that create device driver software for the Intel processor graphics based platforms. Gerry joined Intel in 1988 as a product engineer for i386 and i486 family devices including the 82385 cache controller and IntelDX4 products. In 1996, he joined the software team working on the Intel740 graphics accelerator. Since then he has been involved with all aspects of software development for Intel graphics with the main focus on 3D.

Gerry has a BS in Applied Physics from University of California, Davis, an MS in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University and an MBA from University of California, Davis.

David Forrester, CEO Company: Lightworks

41 year old Dave Forrester is CEO of Lightworks. Joining the company fourteen years ago, Dave rose to become a member of the Board of Directors in 2000 and subsequently lead a management buy-out from the original founders in 2006 - an event that lead to him being nominated as one of the most influential young business entrepreneurs in the North of England. Although his background is from within finance, Dave has a passion for seeing the creation of high quality renderings using the company's industry leading software products.

Phil Miller, Director of Product Management, Nvidia Company: Nvidia Phillip Miller is NVIDIA’s Director of Product Management, responsible for professional software solutions. He's a 17-year veteran of the professional software tools industry, and joined NVIDIA in 2008. Previously, he managed entertainment products at Autodesk, web products at Adobe, and business development at mental images.

Phil holds a Masters of Architecture from the University of Illinois, is a registered architect and co-author of multiple books explaining computer modeling and animation.

Neil Trevett, Khronos President, VP Mobile Content Company: Nvidia A UK native, Neil has been awarded a joint BS from the University of Birmingham in both Electronic Engineering and Computer Science. Neil has spent 25 years in the 3D graphics industry starting in 1985, when Neil became the Head of Graphics Systems at benchMark Technologies. Over several years, he helped to guide the company through its evolution into DuPont® Pixel and then 3Dlabs® before its final acquisition by Creative®. Today, Neil stays busy serving as the elected President of the Khronos Group as well the Chair of the OpenCL™ Working Group. In his “free time”, Neil is the Vice President of Mobile Content at NVIDIA®, a position he has held since 2005.

Phil Miller Company: Nvidia Phillip Miller is NVIDIA’s Director of Product Management, responsible for professional software solutions. He's a 17-year veteran of the professional software tools industry, and joined NVIDIA in 2008. Previously, he managed entertainment products at Autodesk, web products at Adobe, and business development at mental images.

Phil holds a Masters of Architecture from the University of Illinois, is a registered architect and co-author of multiple books explaining computer modeling and animation.

David Forrester, CEO Company: Lightworks

41 year old Dave Forrester is CEO of Lightworks. Joining the company fourteen years ago, Dave rose to become a member of the Board of Directors in 2000 and subsequently lead a management buy-out from the original founders in 2006 - an event that lead to him being nominated as one of the most influential young business entrepreneurs in the North of England. Although his background is from within finance, Dave has a passion for seeing the creation of high quality renderings using the company's industry leading software products.

James McCombe, Director of Ray Tracing IP at ImaginationTechnologies Company: Caustic Graphics, Imagination Technologies

James McCombe was the CTO and founder of Caustic Graphics, and the visionary behind their breakthrough ray tracing technology. Prior to Caustic, James was a lead architect and developer of Apple's OpenGL implementation now used by every Apple software product. He was also chief architect of the embedded rasterization algorithms for the rendering technology used in the iPhone and video iPod.

Rob Powers, Vice President of 3D Development Company: Newtek Worked on Avatar and other films.

Rob manages the design and development of NewTek's 3D products, leveraging his extensive experience in the visual effects and film production industry. Prior to joining NewTek, Rob worked with James Cameron, serving as animation technical director and creator and supervisor of the motion picture industry's first virtual art department for "Avatar," and as CG supervisor for "Aliens of the Deep." He also worked as virtual art department supervisor on Steven Spielberg’s team for the film “Tintin” which is jointly directed by Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Rob worked on Disney's "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and Jet Li's "The One," and was a lead animator on season one of “Ally McBeal” including the famous 3D dancing baby. NewTek also enlisted Powers to use LightWave 3D® to create the first 64-bit Windows® animation, which was presented by Bill Gates in a keynote address. Rob Powers graduated from the University of Southern California's Cinema Production program, and attended the Academy of Motion Pictures, American Film Institute.

Rob Powers on IMDB: www.imdb.com/name/nm0694610/

Jacob Rosenberg, CTO Company: Bandito Bros

Born and raised in the heart of Silicon Valley. He is a digital technology expert, author and filmmaker. For over a decade, Rosenberg has worked extensively as a senior consultant to Adobe Systems Inc., on Adobe's digital video software applications.

Jacob has contributed his technical knowledge to a number of feature film projects, including "Superman Returns," Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones documentary "Shine a Light," James Cameron's "Avatar," and the upcoming independent film, "LBS."

Justin Boitano Company: Nvidia Justin Boitano heads up product marketing for the Workstation Business at NVIDIA, the Industry leader in visual and parallel computing. His career in the technology industry has spanned a range of innovative fast paced companies in emerging industries such as new media content distribution, interactive television, and high tech consumer products. Before joining NVIDIA he was Director of Product Management at Sportvision, a nine time Emmy award winning sports and entertainment Technology Company most known for pioneering the 1st and Tenô line. Since joining NVIDIA in 2008 he has held several key product management and marketing roles and most recently he was responsible for the launch of the latest flagship workstation solution - NVIDIA Maximus.

David Forrester, CEO Company: Lightworks 41 year old Dave Forrester is CEO of Lightworks. Joining the company fourteen years ago, Dave rose to become a member of the Board of Directors in 2000 and subsequently lead a management buy-out from the original founders in 2006 - an event that lead to him being nominated as one of the most influential young business entrepreneurs in the North of England. Although his background is from within finance, Dave has a passion for seeing the creation of high quality renderings using the company's industry leading software products.

Ping Fu Company: Geomagic Honored by Inc. Magazine as “The Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2005, Ping Fu describes herself as an artist and a scientist whose chosen expression is business. Ping co-founded Geomagic, a leading US software company which pioneers 3D technologies that fundamentally change the way products are designed and manufactured around the world. From repairing vintage cars atJay Leno’s garage to preserving US treasures and digitally recreating the Statue of Liberty, Geomagic enables design and production of one-of-the-kind products and services at a cost less than mass production. Since 2010, Ping has been serving on the NACIE (National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship) board at the White House and is a member of NCWIT (National Council on Women in Technology.)

Before co-founding Geomagic, Ping Fu was Director of Visualization at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, where she initiated and managed the NCSA Mosaic software project that led to Netscape and Internet Explorer. She has more than 20 years of software industry experience in database, networking, geometry processing, and computer graphics.

Learn more about Ping Fu in Business Leader. Listen to her 2011 interview at WUNC, 2006 interviews for National Public Radio, and The National Center for Women & Informational Technology.

Rob Hoffman, Head of 3D Entertainment Company: Autodesk Media & Entertainment Rob Hoffmann comes to Autodesk, Inc. with over 16 years of experience in the digital media market, working with both hardware and software products.

Rob started his career as 3D Product Manager for NewTek, Inc., developing a strong understanding of the digital content creation space. After four years at NewTek, Rob moved on to Intergraph Computer Systems as the Director of Worldwide Business Development for TV, Film and Entertainment. Two years later, he returned to NewTek where he served as the Worldwide Marketing Director for 3D.  In 2002, Rob joined Alias as Product Marketing Manager. Having joined Autodesk Media & Entertainment through the acquisition of Alias in January 2006, Rob brings with him Product Marketing Management experience with the Alias 3D products: Maya, MotionBuilder, FBX and HumanIK and now oversees 3D entertainment marketing for Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage, Suites, MotionBuilder, Mudbox, FBX and mental ray for the Media and Entertainment division of Autodesk.

Steve Cooper, Poser Product Manager Company: Smith Micro Software

Steve Cooper is the Poser Product Manager for Smith Micro Software. Working with the core Poser development team, content developers and end users, Cooper is responsible for determining the feature set for the product family and shepherds the delivery of those features to their diverse and active customer base. He is also responsible for brand-centric business development and establishing strategic partnerships to further integration of 3D characters and Poser content within a variety of applications.

Cooper has been working with 3D characters and Poser since 1996 and with 3D tool developers since 1991. His early work with the brand transitioned it from an interesting niche product into the defacto standard for 3D storytelling, complete with a virtual stage and ready to pose 3D characters.  He brings both executive skills and sleeves-rolled-up experience to the Poser family of products.

Prior to working with Smith Micro, Cooper was president of Curious Labs, an early publisher of Poser. Before co-founding Curious Labs he filled senior product management and evangelism roles at Fractal Designs and Metacreations and has driven a variety of 3D initiatives with Strata 3D, Havok and Futuremark.  Cooper holds a BA in illustration and design from the Art Institute of Boston.

Darin Grant, Head of Production Technology Company: Dreamworks

Darin Grant is Head of Production Technology for DreamWorks Animation, where he is responsible for collaborating with the studio’s visual effects supervisors and department heads to establish and manage production priorities for technology development, acquisition, adoption and integration for multiple film projects in various stages of development, pre-production and production across multiple geographic locations. Darin is responsible for strategic leadership in studio-wide production initiatives such as stereoscopic 3D, motion-capture, pre-visualization, and numerous department-specific efforts in pipeline, effects animation, texturing and lighting. Darin is also the production point person on the validation and integration of our upcoming next generation tool set, the most significant technology program the studio has ever undertaken. His credits include DreamWorks Animation feature films such as How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda 2 and the upcoming Puss in Boots.

Prior to joining DreamWorks Animation in 2005, Darin was at Digital Domain for ten years in various positions, concluding as Director of Technology. Notably during his tenure, the studio won numerous accolades for technical achievement, including a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for volumetric techniques and the commercialization of Nuke, a proprietary compositing tool, which is now the industry standard. He received multiple film credits, contributing to software and technical development for the studio’s work on Academy Award-winning visual effect triumphs, including Titanic and What Dreams May Come, as well as special effects-laden action films such as Fight Club, Robot and The Day After Tomorrow.

Darin has served in many leadership and review roles for SIGGRAPH, the world’s largest computer graphics organization. He is a member of the Visual Effects Society and serves on the Digital Imaging Technology Sub-Committee of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Darin holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California.

Brian Pohl Company: Autodesk A veteran of George Lucas’ JAK Films’ previsualization team and ILM

Brian Pohl has 16 years of experience as a designer, VFX artist and previs
supervisor. A veteran of George Lucas' JAK Films previs team and multiple
VFX companies, Pohl is credited for creating or supervising previs on over
22 films including Star Wars Episode II, I,Robot, Star Trek, and Battle: Los
Angeles.

Pohl recently joined Autodesk to apply his past production experience
towards product design. In 2009 he participated in the formation of the
Previsualization Society and acts as secretary and chairman of its web and
educational committees. In his spare time Pohl teaches classes at Gnomon
School of Visual Effects.

Ping Fu, Chairman and CEO of Geomagic Company: Geomagic

Honored by Inc. Magazine as “The Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2005, Ping Fu describes herself an artist and a scientist whose chosen expression is business. Ping co-founded Geomagic, a leading US software company which pioneers 3D technologies that fundamentally change the way products are designed and manufactured around the world. From repairing vintage cars at Jay Leno’s garage to preserving US treasures and digitally recreating the Statue of Liberty, Geomagic enables design and production of one-of-the-kind products and services at a cost less than mass production.

Before Geomagic, Ping was Director of Visualization at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where she initiated and managed the NCSA Mosaic browser that led to Netscape and Internet Explorer. While at Bell Labs, she led the development of data mining and digital telephony.

She is actively involved in promoting entrepreneurship and women in mathematics and sciences. She is on the Advisory Board of the National Science Foundation, the Board of Trustees of the Kenan Institute at the University of North Carolina and an advisor to President Obama serving on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship She is also a mentor for The Clinton Foundation’s Entrepreneur Mentoring Program, she participated in the kick-off for the White House’s 2011 Startup America initiative, is the author of two books and inventor of five US and international patents.

Ping has received numerous awards for her leadership as an entrepreneur, including Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. magazine, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Carolinas, Woman’s Compass award and Life Time Achievements award by Business Leader magazine. She was invited as a guest of the First Lady Michelle Obama at her box for the President’s first State of Union Address in Jan. 2010.

Coming straight to the US from a Chinese prison, Ping’s journey to entrepreneurship is a remarkable American dream by itself. Her childhood dream was to be an astronaut. Today her company’s software is used to ensure safe return of every NASA space shuttle. “I would like to find a way for engineering to transcend humanity” she says. Ping has one daughter and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Rob Powers, Vice President of 3D Development Company: Newtek Worked on Avatar and other films.

Rob Powers is the vice president of 3D Development at NewTek. Powers was the first CG artist to join James Cameron’s team as Animation Technical Director for “Avatar,” eventually creating and supervising the Virtual Art Department (VAD) for “Avatar.” Powers was also the Virtual Art Department Supervisor for Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s “Tintin,” scheduled for release December 2011.

As supervisor of the Avatar Virtual Art Department, Powers and his team developed all the real-time environmental assets for the production and many innovative virtual workflow tools and techniques to define the process. He continued his efforts as Virtual Art Department Supervisor on “TinTin” where he organized and built a team of artists in Los Angeles working directly with the Weta Digital Team in New Zealand.

Powers is a graduate of the University of Southern California Cinema Production. After graduation, he continued his formal film school education at the American Film Institute. At the time, the digital side of filmmaking didn’t exist and no schools offered programs in computer graphics (CG) animation. Self-taught in digital filmmaking methodologies, Powers is among the pioneers of the CG revolution.

He has created animation and effects for a wide range of projects such as James Cameron’s stereoscopic IMAX film “Aliens of the Deep,” Disney’s “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”, and Jet Li’s “The One.” Powers was also the lead animator for the 3D-dancing baby that debuted on the Emmy-Award winning “Ally McBeal” television show in the mid-90s.

Rob Powers on IMDB: www.imdb.com/name/nm0694610/