DIGITAL MEDIA

[The Youth Movement: Digital Media's Leaders and their Ideas Thursday, November 20, 2008 THIS MEETING IS FREE, THERE WILL BE NO CHARGE to attend, however, pre-registration is preferred! Register Online at http://www.entretechforum.org, walk ins are welcome! Please note the location of this meeting is at: Northeastern University - Room 440 Egan Research Center 120 Forsyth Street, Boston MA 02115 Meeting Overview A panel of the region's young, dynamic digital media company founders and CEOs will discuss a wide range of topics relating to their personal careers, their experiences running their companies, where they get their best ideas, and the future of the digital media industry in Boston. The panelists are backed by some of the leading firms in the venture capital industry and are all on aggressive growth paths. The panel will be moderated by Professor Terrence Masson, a member of the faculty at Northeastern. The panelists will discuss: Their personal career path to their leadership position and their thoughts on preparing young people to follow in their footsteps. The hot new digital media trends and business models and how they keep their companies innovative and competitive. How they convinced venture capitalists and angels to back their companies. The role universities do or should play as a source of talented employees and new ideas. How to make Boston a world-class center for digital media companies. Moderator: Terrance Masson, Director of Game Design: NU Author of "CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference" (2007 Second Edition) www.cg101.com 20 years of production experience, since 1994 running own consulting company "Digital Fauxtography" as a Creative Producer, Director and VFX Supervisor. I've come up through the ranks on about 20 feature films as well as many commercials and video game projects including three Star Wars movies and getting SouthPark started. Member of the Producers Guild of America, the Visual Effects Society and have been active in SIGGRAPH since 1988, most recently as the 2006 Computer Animation Festival Chair and currently as SIGGRAPH 2010 Conference Chair. www.visualfx.com Panelists: Karen Ong, CEO and Founder, MyHappyPlanet.com Karen is a language and travel enthusiast. She speaks five languages and has traveled to over 100 cities in 6 continents. This passion for languages and different cultures led Karen to start MyHappyPlanet.com - a social media site for language learning and cultural exchange. MyHappyPlanet.com is a continuation of Karen's interest in building global businesses. Prior to that, Karen led the turnaround of Olay's skin care and Clairol's hair care business in Southeast Asia, Australasia, and India. She also worked in a family business, responsible for sales and product outsourcing in China. Brian Balfour, CEO, Viximo Brian Balfour is a serial internet entrepreneur and active member of the Boston tech community.Brian is currently founder of his fourth startup, Viximo, a company focused on the emerging virtual goods industry. Viximo is funded by North Bridge Venture Partners and Sigma Partners. Brian was also a founding member of Betahouse, a co-working space for tech entrepreneurs located in Cambridge. Brian specializes in online communities and blogs at www.SocialDegree.com. Matt Lauzon, Co-Founder and CEO, Paragon Lake Matt Lauzon founded Paragon Lake in 2006 as a student at Babson College. Lauzon enrolled at Babson because of its reputation as the number one school in the world for entrepreneurship education and leveraged all the college had to offer while exploring various business opportunities. Paragon Lake was born when Lauzon and a fellow student uncovered a niche in the jewelry industry at the intersection of e-commerce and mass customization. Serving as co-founder and CEO, Lauzon took Paragon Lake from an idea incubating in a Babson dormitory to become an institutionally funded company in just two years. Brian Shin, Founder/CEO, Visible Measures Brian Shin is the founder and CEO of Visible Measures, the independent third-party measurement firm for Internet video publishers and advertisers. Brian has co-founded several successful Internet software companies, including web-based collaboration technology vendor Creative Aspects, which was acquired by Medsite Inc. (now WebMD); and The Cambridge Intelligence Agency, a web-based email response management solution provider that was acquired by marketing services company MSGi. Brian also co-founded technology strategy consulting firm Infraweb, Inc. where he served as President, and was an early member of the team at Allaire Corp. which went public in 1999 and was subsequently acquired by Macromedia.