The Digital Hollywood Experience

The Digital Hollywood Experience

Jim Marggraff, Founder, Chairman, CEO, Eyefluence: Dedicated to developing innovative technologies that improve learning, communication, and productivity, Jim Marggraff has founded/co-founded several successful companies, including Livescribe (inventor of the smartpen), Explore Technologies, and StrataCom. He has held a number of executive positions at LeapFrog Enterprises and invented the LeapPad learning system, leading to sales of over $1 billion worldwide. Jim holds 36+ patents/applications and was Ernst & Young Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year, 2011. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and is listed as one of MIT’s top 150 inventors. Jim was named “Father of the Year” in 2004 by the National Father’s Day Council, and delights in inventing and launching ventures with his wife and children.

Roy Ashok is Chief Product Officer at DAQRI, an enterprise augmented reality company driving the future of augmented reality everywhere through its groundbreaking hardware and software, including the DAQRI Smart Helmet. In his role, Roy is focused continually on what comes next for DAQRI products and technology. As a business development leader with a computer engineering background, Ashok brings over a decade of experience to DAQRI. He has held various software and engineering roles at Qualcomm and Hughes Software Systems, most recently as director of product management for Qualcomm. In this role, he co-founded and led the development of Vuforia, with over 200,000 developers and 20,000 applications.

David Weinstein, Director for Professional Virtual Reality, NVIDIA: As Director of Pro VR, he is responsible for NVIDIA’s Professional VR Products, projects, and software development kits (SDKs). Prior to joining NVIDIA, Dave founded and ran three 3D computer imaging technology start-ups. David has a PhD in Computer Science

Ronen Horovitz, Founder and CEO, EyeCue Vision Technologies. For the last 10 years, Ronen has been keen to developing and bringing into the world computer vision technologies that truly enhance interaction between physical and digital. He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology and he is the inventor of more than 20 patents/applications. Already in 2011, EyeCue launched the world’s first interactive game combining real objects with apps for a mobile device – The award winning LEGO Life of George product. Since that pioneering launch, EyeCue continued to launch numerous AR/VR products with leading toys and games companies in the U.S., Europe and Japan, resulting in millions of units sold worldwide.

Michael Leventhal, Partner, Holmes Weinberg, P.C., former, Chief Legal Officer and VP, Magic Leap: Michael Leventhal is a partner at Holmes Weinberg, P.C. He specializes in providing corporate, intellectual property and business transactional services for media/entertainment and technology companies. While managing partner of the entertainment law firm Codikow Leventhal & Carroll in the late 1980’s and early ‘90’s, Michael also developed a practice in high technology and digital media, which began even before the internet was a business model. In 1992, he combined his entertainment and digital media practices, when “multimedia” meant the CD-ROM business. Since that time, Michael has been on the forefront of the legal and business aspects of nearly every major technological innovation in digital media, from payment for electronic transmissions of entertainment content (rather than just shiny discs), to dispute resolution over domain names, to co-branding and cross-licensing agreements for online services, to pay-per-click advertising services, to digital music download services, to television/internet hybrids and the development and licensing agreements required to make them run, to user generated content sites, including development in SecondLife, for social media, and for mobile devices, including phones and tablets, to Alternate Reality Games, to 3D display technology, augmented, virtual and mixed reality. Among his clients have been Fortune 500 companies such as Fox Interactive Media, NEC, and Transamerica; digital vanguards like MySpace, Pop.com, Oversee.net, and GoTV; entertainment/digital technology hybrids such as Motion Theory, Compendia Media, Virtual Netcasting Corporation, the Interactive Television Alliance, PaidContent.org, RockWeb, Satellite Events Enterprises, and Vimby; traditional companies moving into digital media,; and various celebrities in need of  digital media guidance or protection. Most recently, Michael spent the last several years as chief legal officer and vice president at Magic Leap, Inc., the well-known augmented/mixed reality venture.  His duties included standard general counsel responsibilities, content and technology licensing, intellectual property strategy and planning, working with the content team, business development, marketing, HR, and the CEO on special projects, among many other tasks. Michael has represented hundreds of entertainment, digital media and high tech start-ups, early stage companies and middle market companies in music, film, visual effects, interactive television, sports, stand-alone online ventures, entertainment and non-entertainment web-based businesses, software, and more traditional businesses—from formation to strategic planning, structuring companies, M&A and alliances, to licensing matters, to obtaining financing. Working with entrepreneurs and visionaries at all stages of development has long been one of Michael’s passions. Michael has been a partner in a large national firm, a co-owner of several boutique law firms and a business consultancy, a solo practitioner and a senior executive at a high flying technology company. The combination of law firm and business consultancy is consistent with Michael’s holistic approach to representing businesses, both large and start up.  Michael is a frequent writer and speaker on all things digital. Most recently, he spoke at VRLA 2016. Michael goes beyond drafting of agreements to understand and support his clients with strong strategic thinking. He brings his considerable experience to his work with clients to develop an overall direction, with legal and business projects woven into the fabric of the larger strategy.

Bill Newell, President, North South Studios, LLC: As a founding partner of North South Studios, Bill Newell brings more than 18 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience to the company. Bill has been involved in production and multimedia from its early days and has had key roles in establishing many of the business processes that today are often taken for granted. Bill's areas of expertise include finance, technology, production, and operations. Bill's ability to increase productivity without sacrificing quality has been proven time and time again and is a key asset to the company. A longtime associate of his partner, Sarina Simon, Bill came to North South Studios from the Knowledge Kids Network where he served as Chief Operating Officer for five years. Bill co-founded the Knowledge Kids Network and was instrumental in defining its business objectives, operational processes, and company structure. His thorough planning and oversight launched the KidsEdge websites. This network of award-winning websites contained more than 250 games, thousands of articles, and had the capacity to support 3.5 million users. During his tenure at the Knowledge Kids Network, Bill also executive produced a 12 minute animated movie entitled, DotzWorld, which premiered on the AOL network and featured 25 original characters. Bill's insightful finance skills were invaluable to the company in its negotiations with AOL and other prominent partners. Prior to joining the Knowledge Kids Network, Bill was Vice President of Production for IXL Los Angeles, a NASDAQ listed Internet services company with more than $12 million in yearly revenue in the Los Angeles office alone. As VP of Production, Bill oversaw all aspects of production and provided sales support for IXL's west coast offices. Always prolific, he supervised and managed the design and implementation of over 100 projects including assignments for Polygram, Fox, Warner Brothers, NewsCorp, Baker and Taylor, Mazda, Kawasaki, Universal Studios, and Technicolor, among others. Making use of his extensive finance background, Bill brought financial discipline to his production team and productivity increased over 200% during his tenure at IXL. Before joining IXL, Bill was Vice President of Production for Digital Planet, an Internet services company that was later acquired by IXL. As VP of Production, Bill provided direct management of technical, production, and creative teams. He also oversaw all proposal submissions, bids, technical analyses, and creative treatments for media, technology, and consumer companies including Intel, Mattel, the US Postal Service, Disney Online and Allstate. Bill is also a veteran of the multimedia pioneering company, Philips Media, where he worked for four years as an Executive Producer, managing two in-house production groups. In this executive role, Bill directed a 35 member staff and produced six educational CD ROM products. He also directed the localization of numerous products for the Japanese, English, Swedish and American markets.

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Track II: Herscher Hall, 3rd Floor, Room 303-304: Live Webcast

The Augmented Reality Experience: Implementing the Next Generation of AR into Application: From Education to Entertainment and Games

Jim Marggraff, CEO, Eyefluence

David Weinstein, Director for Professional Virtual Reality, nVidia

Roy Ashok, ‎Chief Product Officer, DAQRI

Brian Blau, Research Vice President, Gartner

Ronen Horovitz, Founder and CEO, EyeCue Vision Technologies

Michael Leventhal, Partner, Holmes Weinberg, P.C., former, Chief Legal Officer and VP, Magic Leap

Bill Newell, President, North South Studios LLC, Moderator

Brian Blau is Research Vice President at Gartner in the Personal Technologies group. Brian focuses his research on technical and business strategies as they relate to important and popular topics, including consumer social networks, the video game market, mobile apps, consumer ecosystems, wearable devices and apps, virtual reality and augmented reality, personal drones, and many other app, services, technologies and go-to-market strategies. He also provides advice about using personal technologies in IT. In addition Brian is Gartner's Lead Analyst for Apple.