Paul Singh (500 Startups)

Paul is the founder of Disruption Corporation which provides tools, research and advisory services to corporations, angel investors and venture capital firms. Paul is also an investor via Crystal Tech Fund.

Previously, he was a Partner at 500 Startups, a 4 year old “super angel” fund headquartered in Mountain View, CA and has overseen the investments in 525+ companies across 35+ countries.

He is currently serving as an Entrepreneur in Residence with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and DHS/USCIS.

Prior to Disruption Corporation and 500, Paul was the founder of a few other startups (two successful exits and a number of failures in between) and spent some time at PBworks, AOL and Symantec.

Sridhar Vembu (Founder, Zoho)

Sridhar Vembu is the CEO of Zoho Corp. (formerly AdventNet Inc.), the company behind the Zoho suite of online applications. He co-founded AdventNet in 1996, and has been CEO since 2000. AdventNet has transformed itself from a modest beginning as a software company serving network equipment vendors to a be an innovative online applications provider. It has maintained growth and profitability, without needing outside capital, effectively making him a billionaire and one of the richest Indian citizens. Prior to AdventNet, Sridhar worked as a wireless systems engineer at Qualcomm, Inc. where he was fortunate to work with some of the leading minds in wireless communications. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University.

Jon Medved (Founder, OurCrowd)

Jonathan Medved is a serial entrepreneur the founder and CEO of OurCrowd, the leading global equity crowdfunding platform for accredited investors and angels. OurCrowd, according to Forbes (August 13, 2013) is “one of the largest crowdfunding organizations on the planet” having raised over $750M for over 160 portfolio companies and 21 exits since its launch in February 2013. OurCrowd exits include: Jump Bikes sold to Uber, Briefcam sold to Canon, Argus sold to Continental, Crosswise sold to Oracle, and Replay sold to Intel. Bloomberg Business week said in the May 7, 2015 edition that “OurCrowd is hands down the most successful equity-crowdfunding platform in the world right now.” TheStreet.com described OurCrowd as “Crowdfunding for Real Investors.” Medved has been both an entrepreneur and investor: He has been part of the founding teams at several successful Israeli startups, and as a venture and angel investor over the past two decades he invested in almost 250 startup companies, helping to bring 25 of them to values in excess of $100M. Between 2006-2012, Medved was the co-founder and CEO of Vringo, a leader in the innovation, development and monetization of mobile technologies and intellectual property. Medved led Vringo to a successful completion of its IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the NYSE:AMEX in June, 2010 and it trades today on the NASDAQ under the symbol FH. Before founding Vringo, Medved was the founder and General Partner of Israel Seed Partners, one of Israel’s leading venture capital funds. Started by Medved in 1995 in his garage; he co-managed the fund until January 2006. His partners at Israel Seed included Neil Cohen, Michael Eisenberg (Benchmark, Aleph) and Alan Feld (Vintage). Israel Seed had $262M under management in four funds and has been an investor in 60 leading Israeli companies. Israel seed Exits include: Shopping.com (acquired by Ebay), Compugen (Nasdaq: CGEN), Answers.com (Nasdaq: ANSW, acquired by Summit), Cyota (acquired by RSA/CA), Finjan (Nasdaq: FNJN ), Mobile Access (acquired by Corning), Tradeum (acquired by VerticalNet), Native Networks (acquired by Alcatel), Broadlight (acquired by Broadcom), Xacct (acquired by Amdocs), Business Layers (acquired by CA), Xtellus (acquired by Oclaro), and Digital Fuel (acquired by VMWare). According to the Washington Post (Dec 5, 2007) Jon is “one of Israel’s leading high tech venture capitalists”. September 2008, the NY Times Supplement “Israel at 60” Medved was named one of the “top 10 most influential Americans who have impacted Israel”. In May 22, 2015 Edition of the Jerusalem Post, Medved was named one of the World’s “50 most influential Jews”. Jon Medved’s interview on the Charlie Rose show can be seen here: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/venture-capitalist-jon-medved-charlie-rose-03-14-5ePk6HNbTzqzn4mFTSkzsg.html

Mike Savage (Mayor, Halifax)

Savage was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and spent his early years in South Wales before moving to Canada at age six. Savage is the son of former Nova Scotia premier John Savage.

Mayor Savage is an active member of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Big City Mayors’ Caucus and a strong voice in support of local economic development, immigration, social equity, and infrastructure investment.

As Member of Parliament for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour from 2004 until 2011, Mayor Savage played a national role as Official Opposition Critic for Human Resources, Social Development and Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Mayor Savage and his wife Darlene have two children, Emma and Conor, and continue to make their home in Dartmouth where Mayor Savage grew up and attended Prince Andrew High before graduating from Dalhousie University.