Judging panel
Don Burton, managing director - education technology TechStars
. Photograph: .
Don Burton is managing director of the Kaplan EdTech Accelerator, powered by TechStars. Don has a storied background that includes time as a Consultant at McKinsey and Company, an M & A Associate at Goldman Sachs and Director of Business Development for the Walt Disney, Disney Education Group. He founded ParentPartners.com which was acquired by Washington Post & Kaplan. He also served as President and CEO of the Global Education Network (GEN). He founded A-Ha! Learning Center, a play and learning center for children and their families in New York City and eebee's Adventures, a baby media company.
Jim Daily, executive vice president of sales, Ebuzzing
Jim Daily Photograph: Ebuzzing
Jim Daily, Ebuzzing's US General Manger, is an expert in online video advertising. With over 8 year's industry experience Jim previously worked in sales at Undertone and as Director of East Coast Sales for Break Media. Jim joined Ebuzzing in June 2013 to launch and grow the company's operations in the US.
Stacy Donohue, director, investments, Omidyar Network
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Stacy leads Omidyar Network's government transparency initiative in the United States. In this role, Stacy works to encourage accountability and effectiveness in government by increasing people's access to credible information about government activities and money in politics.
Prior to joining Omidyar Network, Stacy spent nine years at Hewlett-Packard in senior roles spanning strategy, corporate development, and merger and acquisition transactions. Previously, Stacy was a project leader at the Boston Consulting Group, where she provided analysis and consulting for clients across multiple industries from healthcare to financial services. Stacy is a board member for Code for America, Global Integrity, and the Sunlight Foundation.
Danny Lopez, british consul general, New York and director general, Uk Trade & Investment USA
Danny Lopez Photograph: UKTI
Danny Lopez was appointed British Consul General, New York in July 2011 and has responsibility for promoting the UK's economic profile, foreign policy and national security priorities in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut's Fairfield County. He is on the Board of UK Trade & Investment, the foreign commercial arm of the UK Government, and leads its operations across the USA.
Ziv Navoth, advisor, Tech City UK, founder and CEO, Paragraph
Ziv Navoth Photograph: ZN
Ziv Navoth is the founder and CEO of Paragraph. Previously he was Senior Vice President of Marketing & Partnerships at Aol. Ziv joined Aol through its acquisition of Bebo, where he was responsible for marketing, business development and mobile, and a member of the executive team that led the negotiations and eventual sale of the company to Aol for $850M.
Before joining Bebo he founded Verve, a boutique management consultancy offering strategic advisory services to leading companies in the US, UK and elsewhere. Before this he ran Startup Station, an internet accelerator he founded in 1999 and sold to a UK public company. He is the author of Nanotales, a collection of short stories, and lives with his wife and two daughters in New York City.
Erin Vilardi, founder, Vote, Run, Lead
Erin Vilardi Photograph: EV
Erin Vilardi is the Founder of Vote, Run, Lead, a national nonpartisan, progressive organization leveraging technology to accelerate the number of women leaders in political office. She also serves as a Leadership Development Consultant for a range of clients; most recently, the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. There she developed the Athena CORE10 – an innovative set of leadership competencies for 21st century women leaders based on the latest research and gender analysis.
She has created professional education programs and strategic partnerships for Fortune 100 companies including HSBC, ADP and Yahoo!'s Business and Human Rights division. She has worked with a diverse range of clients from global girls' initiatives to the US Department of State, and has advanced women leaders in Cairo, Dublin and Mexico City. Formerly Vice President of Program and Communications at The White House Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to advance US women's leadership, where she first launched launched Vote, Run, Lead - the largest national political training program readying women for public office and civic life - training over 14,000 women since 2004.
Vilardi serves on the Advisory Boards of Girl Meets World, fostering girls' leadership through career exploration, and the New American Leaders Project, working to increase the number of immigrants participating in US democracy. She is an Executive Producer of Ann Richards' Texas, a forthcoming HBO documentary about the late pioneering governor.
Since 2008, Vilardi has served as the New York Delegate for Vision2020, a 50-state initiative to increase women in leadership by the year 2020. Vilardi has appeared on CNN, BBC, Fox News and in numerous articles on women and leadership, was featured on a Lifetime Television special on young women entitled "Spotlight 25," and in O, The Oprah Magazine.
Joanne Wilson, angel investor and adviser
Joanne Wilson Photograph: Joanne Wilson
Joanne has had several careers starting out as a buyer at Macys to running a company in the rag trade eventually leading to spearheading sales for a start-up magazine/e-zine/events company called Silicon Alley Reporter. On to the non-profit world where she chaired MOUSE (Making Opportunities in Upgrading Schools in Education) an organization focused on technology in inner-city schools. She has sat on a number of profit and non-profit boards and has been involved with a variety of real estate transactions from beginning to end.
Joanne has been blogging since 1994 under the name Gotham Gal. She is involved with the start-up community as an angel investor and adviser. She has been a champion of women in tech by starting and co-chairing the Women's Entrepreneurial Festival with the ITP division of NYU. Many of the companies she is working with are owned or started by women. The tech companies are Food52, Edison Jr., Catchafire, Dailyworth, The Sweeten, NGAdventage, Windowfarms, Venuebook, Scoot, Talk Market, 3rd Ward, Editd, Blue Bottle Coffee, Lover.ly, Mouth Foods, How Good, , Little Borrowed Dress, Vengo, Willa Skincare, Kitchensurfing, littleBits, Nest.io, Red Stamp, VenueBook, Architizer, Capture Proof, Have to Have, Mercaris, Le Tote, Curbed (Eater/Racked) as well as Ricks Picks, several restaurants and The Moon Group. She is the Chairperson of Hot Bread Kitchen and sits on the board of the Highline.
Her most successful venture is being married to her best friend, Fred and raising her three kids, Jessica, Emily and Josh.
Amy Wu, investor, IA Ventures
Amy Wu Photograph: AW
Amy Wu is an investor at IA focused on early stage data-centric companies. Previously, she was at Insight Ventures Partners on the operating team helping SaaS companies scale from growth to pre-IPO. When not working, Amy is busy training for her next mountain to climb.
Patricia Young, vice consul, ICT & Tech City, UK Trade & Investment
Patricia is a skilled strategist who demonstrates leadership capabilities, excellence in the field of international business, innovation, and has a proven expertise in scaling start – ups internationally. Moreover, she has a Masters in International Business and Marketing with over 10 years of successful international experience in key leadership positions in both multinational corporations and government. Patricia has overseen and directed strategic projects and managed new technology start-up initiatives (Tech City – www.techcityuk.com) tasked by Heads of States.