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Berkeley
Entrepreneurs Forum
September
20, 2007 Program:
Exploring Virtual
Worlds:
Real Opportunities
The Forum for September 20 will focus on one of the hottest
topics in the wide-open world of social networking: virtual
worlds. Industry experts will explore this area and the opportunity
for creating real businesses based on another, very unreal,
world. Special to this Forum will be an idea fair where start-ups
working with virtual worlds ideas can demo their products during
the networking hour. Fair participants will also be the
"Numbers" for
the evening.
Our real experts on virtual worlds will be:
Robin Harper is Vice President of Marketing
& Community Development at Linden
Lab, the “real” home of Second Life, one of
the most popular of the new virtual worlds. In her initial
years at Linden Lab, Robin led the emergence of the Second
Life brand, including naming, positioning and the other marketing
efforts supporting introduction of this life-changing technology.
In the past few years, she shifted focus to the interface
between the Second Life Residents and Linden Lab, facilitating
communication at all levels and establishing policies, operations
and support mechanisms to address issues ranging from social
mores to technical support. In the last year, Robin has resumed
leadership of Marketing while continuing to implement new
programs.
Dan Kelly is co-founder and CEO of Sparter,
the first website devoted to enabling global Gamer2Gamer™
(G2G™) trading of virtual currencies. Dan is a ten-year
veteran of the video game industry and was previously Senior
Vice President of Business Development for THQ Inc. where
he was responsible for building out THQ’s portfolio
of original titles and expanding the internal studio network.
A few of the key franchises published by THQ as a result of
Dan’s leadership include Full Spectrum Warrior, Destroy
All Humans!, Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, and Stuntman;
studios added include Relic Entertainment, Kaos Studios, and
Vigil Games. Before joining THQ, Dan was an executive with
The Walt Disney Company where, ss head of business development
and licensing for Disney Interactive, he was responsible for
negotiating the relationship with Square Enix for the production
of Kingdom Hearts. He also served as President of Marketing
and Distribution for the award-winning television production
company Cartoon Pizza, a spin-off from The Walt Disney Company.
Mr. Kelly has a BS in Engineering and Economics from Vanderbilt
University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s
Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
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