Ben and Judy Benjamin are the owners of Ben and Judy's Sugarhouse which they founded in 1982. This maple sugar business began as a hobby and has grown over the years to involve more of the extended family.
Ben and Judy Benjamin have oil-fired evaporators, reverse osmosis machines and other equipment meant to speed up the task of reducing 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup. After sap turns to syrup, Judy Benjamin takes over, making value-added products such as maple cream and granulated maple sugar.
Carl Weissman is a Venture Partner at MPM focusing particularly on the operational aspects of MPM portfolio companies. He is currently serving as the President and CEO of Accelerator, an MPM led effort, in affiliation with Dr. Leroy Hood's Institute for Systems Biology, to invest in and manage emerging biotechnology companies. Accelerator has facilitated Series A investments in, and is managing the operations of, three companies - VieVax, VLST, and Spaltudaq. Prior to Accelerator, Mr. Weissman represented MPM as the President and CEO of Centagenetix, an MPM portfolio company. In that role, Mr. Weissman led the February 2003 merger of Centagenetix, with Elixir Pharmaceuticals, and remained on the Board of Directors of the combined entity until January 2005. Prior to joining MPM, he spent six years at Prolinx, Inc., where he held a number of positions, culminating as the head of both Finance and Business Development.
Professor Hagelin teaches intellectual property and technology commercialization law at Syracuse University School of Law. His research focuses on intellectual property strategy and patent valuation. He has developed a new method to value patents, called Competitive Advantage Valuation or CAV, and currently has a patent application pending on the CAV method.
Professor Hagelin is the founder and director of the Syracuse University New Technology Law Center (SUNTEC) and of the Technology Commercialization Research Center (TCRC). In his capacity as director of the TCRC, Professor Hagelin has supervised over 75 research projects on the commercial development of early-stage technologies on behalf of universities, federal research laboratories, technology development organizations, and large, medium, small and start-up companies.
In March 2004, Syracuse University College of Law was selected by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR), in a peer reviewed state-wide competition, to be the New York State Science & Technology Law Center (NYS STLC) for the next three years. With funding in excess of $1 million, the mission of the NYS STLC is to provide legal education, research, information and support services to the more than 30 research centers supported by New York State. Professor Hagelin will serve as director of the NYS-STLC.
Ted Hagelin received his B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School. He received his J.D. from Temple University and his LL.M. from Harvard University.
Nadja Schnetzler is the CEO and Co-Founder of BrainStore and the author of "The Idea Machine". In the Swiss company BrainStore, ideas are produced in the same way as products - made-to-order and on a conveyor belt. The BrainStore ideas machine is an innovation model which functions on engineering principles and makes this idea generation possible. Nadja Schnetzler studied at the Ringier School of Journalism in Zurich, Switzerland.
Gil Friend is the founder, president and CEO of Natural Logic, Inc.. He is a systems ecologist and business strategist with over 30 years of experience in business development and environmental innovation. Tomorrow Magazine called him "one of the country's leading environmental management consultants - a real expert who combines theoretical sophistication with hands-on, in-the-trenches know-how."
Mr. Friend has founded and managed companies in the fields of Internet, sustainable development and social marketing, and has developed management strategies and business, operating and marketing plans for large and small companies in a wide range of industries. He was a founding board member of internet pioneer Institute for Global Communications, and played key or founding roles in such seminal environmental enterprises as the California Office of Appropriate Technology, Turner Broadcasting's Planet Live, University of California's AgroEcology Program, and Buckminster Fuller's World Game. In addition, Friend was co-founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, one of the nation's leading urban ecology and economic development "think-and-do tanks," and CEO of The Arts of Peace, an early pioneer in television direct response marketing, and of SEND, Inc., a social marketing company, and principal in Gil Friend and Associates, a noted strategic environmental management consultancy.
Gil Friend holds an MS in Systems Ecology from Antioch University.
Bill Lloyd joined Kodak in June 2003 as director, Portfolio Planning and Analysis. In October 2003, he was named director, Inkjet Systems Program, and was elected vice president of the company. In February 2005, he was elected a senior vice president. He assumed his current position as Chief Technical Officer in March, 2005.
Prior to Kodak, Lloyd was president of the consulting firm, Inwit, Inc. focused on imaging technology. He also has extensive expertise in imaging and printing technologies, stemming from his 31-year career at Hewlett-Packard Company where he was group vice president and CTO for consumer imaging and printing. In his career at HP, Lloyd held a variety of positions in product development and research both in the US and Japan.
Prior to joining Hewlett-Packard, he spent 7-years in the aerospace industry, where, among other things, he served as the project manager for the communications antenna on the Apollo Command and Service Module used in the lunar landing program.
Bill Lloyd received a BSEE degree from UCLA and a MSEE degree from Stanford University.
John Renehan co-founded EnVision Leadership Inc. in 2000. EnVision Leadership is an organization based in Boston, MA, that builds inclusive leadership programs. For five years, Renehan served as Executive Director serving thousands of students and educators from all fifty states and over thirty countries.
John Renehan received his undergraduate degree from the University of Richmond and will receive his MBA from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2007.
Evan T. Edwards currently serves as vice-president of product development for Intelliject, LLC., a biomedical company devoted to developing innovative drug delivery technologies. He is the co-founder of Intelliject and their compact drug delivery system, specializing in all areas of the invention and design process. He is currently one of the primary inventors on more than forty of Intelliject's patents filed both domestically and abroad.
Intelliject, LLC was formed from an Advanced E-Team award from the NCIIA in 2000.
Evan Edwards received a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.
Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with national governments in Europe and Asia, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, national and state education systems, non-profit corporations and some of the world's leading cultural organizations. They include the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, the Royal Ballet, the Hong Academy for Performing Arts, the European Commission, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the J Paul Getty Trust and the Education Commission of the States.
He was principal author of The Arts in Schools: Principles, Practice and Provision, the report of a national inquiry 1982 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. This is now established as a key text on arts and education in Britain and internationally. He was editor of The Arts and Higher Education, 1984 Gulbenkian and the Leverhulme Trust, and principal writer for the Department of Education and Science of The Arts in Further Education published in 1986.
From 1985-89, he was Director of The Arts in Schools Project, a national initiative to develop the arts in primary and secondary schools throughout England and Wales. The project was funded by the National Curriculum Council and local education authorities, and worked closely with the Arts Council, Crafts Council, and the British Film Institute, the Regional Arts Boards, and the National Foundation for Educational Research. The project worked with over 2000 teachers, artists, and cultural administrators in a network of over 300 practical initiatives throughout the country.
From 1989 - 2001, he was Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick, one of the five leading research universities in the UK.
In 1998, he was invited by the UK Government to establish and lead a national commission on creativity, education and the economy. The Commission brought together leading business people, scientists, artists and educators. His report, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (The Robinson Report) was published to huge acclaim. He was a central figure in developing a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, working with the ministers for training, education enterprise and culture.
Sir Ken Robinson earned a PhD from the University of London in 1981. He was knighted in June 2003 by Queen Elizabeth II for his achievements in creativity, education and the arts.