Qaizar Hassonjee is Vice President of Innovations at adidas Wearable Sports Electronics. He was also co-founder and chief development & commercial officer of Textronics Inc., Textronics is an electro-textile technology company that originated from DuPont’s textile fiber research effort and was recently acquired by adidas. Previously, Dr. Hassonjee worked with DuPont and Invista™ (formerly DuPont Textiles and Interiors) for over 14 years with assignments in R&D, Sales & Marketing, Sourcing and Management roles.

Jennifer Darmour is a user experience design director at the product design firm Artefact, where she focuses on designing products and services for next-generation user experiences. She first began investigating wearable technology while in graduate school at Art Center College of Design, where she designed a collection of projects that explored wearable computing, soft textiles, and the aesthetics of circuitry as our second skin. Since then, she has been living in Seattle and designing award-winning on-body and technology products for companies such as Microsoft (Surface, Xbox, Windows Mobile Microsoft Live Search and Virtual Earth maps), HTC, Blackberry, Google, Lenovo, Panasonic, Sonos, and American Eagle. Jennifer also blogs and runs electricfoxy.com , which explores new interaction paradigms applied to on-body experiences that are beautiful, wearable, and connect with software and services.

Greg Roberts is a leading authority on natural user interfaces and wearable computing. In his present role as co-founder and Chief Designer of dSky9.com, Roberts leads the design and development of best-in-class applications for smartglasses. His work focuses on apps specifically tailored for outdoor, athletic and fitness enthusiasts. Previously he founded PlayMotion, one of the first videogame companies to utilize natural human motion as its primary method of interaction. His teams games predated both the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect platforms. Roberts has designed experiences for some of the most prestigious brands and destinations on the planet, including Google, Nike, Playboy, Red Bull, WIRED, NASA, and Disney. Roberts is also an avid practitioner of acrobatic partner yoga.

Syuzi Pakhchyan is fashion technologist and author with a passion for beautiful code and conductive cloth. After receiving her BFA from UC Berkeley in Literature and her MFA from the Art Center College of Design, she began a design and innovation consulting studio focused on next generation wearable technologies. Author of Fashioning Technology the first DIY book on interactive fashion, Syuzi has also penned numerous articles on the creative practices of interactive fashion. As a leading expert in her field, she chronicles the constantly evolving developments in wearable technology on her blog, fashioningtech.com. Currently she is working on a line of playful wearable technology products for kids. Syuzis work has been exhibited at various conferences and events including V & A Museum (London), Eyebeam, A & D Museum (Los Angeles), the Fashion Future Event, Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, South by Southwest, Maker Faire and Emerging Technologies Conference.

Balaji Kanigicherla is VP and Chief Technology Officer for Ineda Systems, with responsibility for product architectures, hardware and software engineering. Prior to his engineering role at Ineda, he held the position of CEO for Ineda Systems, Pvt. Ltd. Pior to Ineda he was at AMD where he was responsible for management of a 500+ engineering organization and was also program executive for their low power fusion SoC. Prior to AMD Kanigicherla served as a Senior Director at Conexant Systems, with management responsibility for the company’s Set-Top-Box and Imaging/PC Media silicon engineering teams. Kanigicherla has held technical/management roles at Silicon Valley startups Ikanos & Velio and was a key member of their industry first networking/communication products. Earlier in his career, he was associated with Intel towards their x86 CPU and mobile chip-set engineering product development.Kanigicherla was awarded “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” by Silicon India in 2011 and is a noted speaker at multiple industry & academic forums. He has filed for20+ patents to date.

Ben’s passion for growing and leading science based businesses led him to co-found MC10 in 2008. His multidisciplinary expertise in both material science and electronics uniquely position him to lead MC10’s partnership activities and growth across its Medical, Consumer, and Government segments. Ben’s career has been spent scaling technology enabled businesses. Prior to MC10, Ben helped grow Nantero’s carbon nanotube electronics business (sold to Lockheed Martin Corporation) and led marketing and sales for a Volunteer Solutions.org (winner 1998 MIT 50K, sold to the United Way). He began his career as a corporate intraprenuer as one of the founding team members of IBM’s Networking Hardware microelectronics business – today greater than a billion dollars in sales. Ben has been an invited key note speaker at Fortune 100 companies on strategies for growing disruptive science driven innovations. Ben’s other passion is coaching individuals on building their careers in technology and serves as an executive coach at the Harvard Business School. Ben earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School and holds 2 issued patents with 11 pending.

CEO, Co-Founder of Misfit Wearables, makers of highly wearable sensor products. Co-Founder of AgaMatrix, makers of the world¹s first iPhone-connected hardware medical device, winner of the Red Dot and GOOD Design Awards, now in the Apple Store. Built AgaMatrix from a raw two-person start-up to shipping 15+ FDA-cleared products, 1B+ biosensors, 3M+ glucose meters for diabetics. Previously, CTO of a software start-up & worked at Microsoft Research on machine learning / linguistic technologies. Studied math (BS) at UIUC and linguistics (PhD) under Noam Chomsky at MIT and knows a number of interesting languages. He has since been pursuing his unrequited love for product design, now as patron of good design.

Nicole Tricoukes is the Senior Maverick in charge of the Motorola Solutions HC1 headset computer program for the Chief Technology Office. Previously, she worked across disciplines at Tiffany & Co. and as a member of a TSA federal task force to help protect airlines. At Symbol Technologies and Motorola Solutions, she has helped drive the advancement of future innovations and emergent business concepts with external technology partners. Nicole has presented publicly at Mobile World Congress, TEDxSiliconAlley and at PARC’s Power of 10 conferences on the emergence of wearable computing in the enterprise.

Dr. Robert Greenberg has worked in the field of retinal prosthetics for over twenty years. From 1991 to 1997, Dr. Greenberg conducted pre-clinical and clinical trials demonstrating the feasibility of retinal electrical stimulation to elicit visual perceptions. From 1997 to 1998, he served as a medical officer and lead reviewer for IDEs and 510(k)s at the Office of Device Evaluation at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the Neurological Devices Division. In 1998, he received his medical and doctorate degrees from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Greenberg has been CEO of Second Sight since the founding of the company. Dr. Greenberg currently sits on the board of directors of the Southern California Biomedical Council, the Los Feliz Arts Charter and one of Alfred Manns foundations.

As a Founder of True Ventures, John Burke brings a passion for building companies, backing incredible people, and early-stage investing. Prior to his venture career, John founded BMI Software, which was acquired in 1997. In the late 90s, he started working with Phil Black at ABS Ventures and then DB Capital Partners. Before founding True, John was a founder and Managing Member of Blacksmith Capital, and early stage technology venture firm. John holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley, a BA degree in Economics from U.C. Santa Cruz, and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Steven LeBoeuf is the co-founder and CEO of Valencell, Inc. Valencell develops wearable fitness monitoring technology and licenses this technology to leading mobile device and accessory brands and sports and fitness brands for integration into their products. Valencell’s PerformTek® sensor technology seamlessly integrates into audio earbuds and other wearable devices, such as armbands and wristbands, and connects with smartphone apps people are already using while exercising. It measures more real-time biometric and physiological data than any other fitness monitor with a high degree of accuracy and consistency, and uses that data to give people meaningful health and fitness assessments.Dr. LeBoeuf has developed commercial and academic partnerships with many businesses and institutions. Duke Center for Living, North Carolina State University, the Human Performance Laboratory, and American College of Sports Medicine have provided clinical validation of Valencell’s next-gen technology. Dr. LeBoeuf has raised more than $10M in funding and is the inventor/co-inventor of more than 50 patents. Prior to Valencell, Dr. LeBoeuf led the optoelectronic biosensor program at GE Global Research. He developed optoelectronic solid-state materials and devices while researching at N. C. State University. Dr. LeBoeuf holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from N.C. State and a B.S. in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University.

Manash has over 10 years experience in the wireless and mobile space. Most recently he led the fitness smartwatch product category at Motorola Mobility. Manash led the expansion of the fitness smartwatch (MOTOACTV) into fitness retailers, independent running stores and built awareness in target segments. Prior to that Manash held various positions at Motorola Mobility in product management, business development and engineering. Manash is currently engaged with some startups in an advisory role and mentoring at Chicago’s 1871 tech incubator. Manash has an MBA from Kellogg School at Northwestern University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science.

Avi Greengart is the Research Director, Consumer Devices at Current Analysis. Avi manages two complimentary services covering world of consumer devices: COMPETE (analysis on global phones, connected devices, wearable technology, and devices in the digital home) and CurrentTrack (U.S. phone and tablet pricing data and data trend analysis). Prior to Current Analysis Avi spent two years as a Senior Analyst at JupiterResearch, six years as a Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Intel, and a few years in marketing, product management, and user interface design for Flash Creative Management, a boutique database consultancy. Avi is quoted regularly by the media, is a noted speaker and moderator at industry events, and writes a regular column for techpinions.com.

Angela McIntyre is a research director at Gartner and covers wearable electronics and mobile computing for consumer, business and medical use. Ms. McIntyres research extends to “bring your own device,” the connected home, the Internet of Things, and user interfaces, such as multitouch, speech and gesture. Before joining Gartner five years ago, Ms. McIntyre worked at Intel, where she informed product strategy for personal computing. Prior to Intel, she was with Texas Instruments.

Skooks Pong is the senior vice president of technology at Synapse Product Development where he leads a team of over 200 software, mechanical and electrical engineers that are creating breakout devices in industries such as mobile payments, guest experience and wearable fitness technologies that have included Nike’s FuelBand. Skooks serves as an expert resource on the creation of mobile payments, fitness and guest experience wearable devices, NFC technology and the crowdfunding movement for devices and has deep insights into the trends that are affecting these industries and the ecosystems they touch.With limitless curiosity and a passion for doing things right, Skooks is committed to pushing the boundaries of new and developing technologies and their ability to create meaning in the world. Foregoing the traditional education route, Skooks instead pursued his lifelong interest in hands-on creation and realization and approaches the business of product development with skills drawn entirely from real world application. He spent the last 20 years designing, developing, and delivering prototypes across a broad range of industries.

Carl Howe is Vice President of Yankee Group’s Data Sciences group and also leads its research into mobile devices. In his data sciences role, Carl oversees all Yankee Group’s carrier monitoring, survey, and forecasting products and has led its work in interactive data analysis and visualization. In his research role, Carl examines and measures how mobile networks, devices, and content transform the ways that consumers live. Carl’s contributions to Yankee Group’s mobility vision include reports such as Analyzing the Tablet Landscape, The Four Horsemen of the Mobility Revolution, The Forgotten Smartphone Apps, and The Next Tipping Point: The Connected Experience. Carl’s current research agenda includes research on the landscape and future of tablets, eReaders, and smartphones as well as the evolution of ecosystems around these devices.