2022 Speaker Video Introductions
Dr. Jon Peddie, CEO
Jon Peddie Research
Dr. Jon Peddie is one of the pioneers of the graphics industry, and formed Jon Peddie Research (JPR) to provide customer intimate consulting and market forecasting services. Peddie lectures at numerous conferences on topics pertaining to graphics technology and the emerging trends in digital media technology. Regularly credited as one of the world’s most influential analysts, he regularly advises investors in the GLG network, he is frequently quoted in trade and business publications, was the former president of Siggraph Pioneers, and he is also the author or co-author of twelve books. His most recent works include “Augmented Reality: Where we Will All Live” and “The History of Visual Magic in Computers”. Dr. Peddie has also been honored by the CAD Society with a lifetime achievement award.
Christiaan Brinkhoff, Principal Program Manager and Community Lead
Windows 365 Cloud PC Engineering Team
Microsoft
Christiaan helps customers imagine new virtualization experiences. A former Global Black Belt for Azure Virtual Desktop, Christiaan joined Microsoft in 2018 as part of the FSLogix acquisition. In his role at Microsoft, he owns client and Windows integrations. He brings Windows 365, Windows, and Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) closer together and drives community efforts around virtualization to empower Microsoft customers in leveraging new cloud virtualization scenarios.
Thorsten Stremlau,
Systems Principal Architect and Distinguished Engineer, CISSP
Nvidia
Thorsten’s focus is the security and manageability of Nvidia’s Hardware portfolio. Prior to Nvidia, Thorsten served as Chief Technologist and Executive Director for Lenovo’s Commercial Product Portfolio. His earlier roles at Lenovo also included Principal Engineer and Director for their Strategic Enterprise Consulting group, and Global Account Solutions Director EMEA and AP.
Thorsten’s interests in the CORA ecosystem are based on his continued experiences with client, cloud, and network connectivity.
Juan Rivera
VP of Engineering, Microsoft Teams
Microsoft
As Microsoft Teams VP of Engineering, Mr. Rivera is responsible for delivering meetings, calling and devices experiences. His focus is to drive new opportunities that enable hybrid work for enterprises, government agencies and businesses around the world. With hundreds of millions of active users, Teams is the standard collaboration tool for many organizations around the globe.
Before joining Microsoft, Mr. Rivera was senior Vice President at Citrix systems where he worked for over 20 years. He led virtualization, collaboration, end point security, analytics and networking engineering teams and lead the transformation from an on-premises/perpetual license business to a SaaS/subscription-based business.
Mr. Rivera holds a masters degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a BS in Computer Engineering. He also holds 16 patents in the area of virtualization, graphics, collaboration and multimedia.
Justin Galton, Director of Worldwide Business Development
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Justin Galton leads worldwide commercial client business development, go-to-market and sell-out for AMD’s Commercial Client Business Unit. Justin is focused on acquisition and market share gains across all segments, and is highly involved with all major partnerships, including OEM, channel and ISVs. Justin spends a lot of his time out in the field presenting, and driving synergies and focused, collaborative execution with key partners.
Justin has 15+ years of technology leadership experience, and most of that time has been focused on business development, sales and strategic partnerships. Prior to AMD, Justin was at Fujitsu, Lenovo, Samsung Semiconductor and Toshiba Semiconductor. Justin resides in Raleigh-Durham, NC.
Sravanthi Kota Venkata, Director
Network and Edge
Intel
As product leader in the Network and Edge division of Intel, Sravanthi drives the product strategy, planning and management for GPU, Media and AI. The challenge of continuously innovating and delivering compute platform(s) that enable delivery of seamless experiences traversing edge and network, while managing the scale, efficiencies and complexities in the 5G era excites Sravanthi.
As product leader, she is proud of delivering Intel’s first server-class GPU, Intel® SG1 and roadmap, for video gaming and AI markets; more recently driving new chips with integrated acceleration that are optimized for 5G vRAN, leading the M&A of eBrisk Video Inc, and defining the product architecture for Intel® Media Server Studio SDK for broad market adoption among others.
Prior to Intel, Sravanthi worked in Sarnoff Innovative Tech (formerly RCA labs) as Applied Computer Vision engineer for vision processors and Analog Devices as video codec engineer.
Sravanthi holds Masters in Computer Science and Engineering from University of California San Diego, and holds publications in the area of heterogeneous architectures, memory systems and vision.
Bruce Grove
Vice-President and General Manager
Mythical Games
Bruce brings both British Aerospace engineering savvy and Silicon Valley entrepreneurial vision to the video games industry. From jet engine testing facilities, to the world’s first liquid-cooled gaming PCs, to pioneering cloud gaming platforms; Bruce has dedicated his life’s work to building teams, tools, and platforms that go beyond solving a problem, and have helped shape generations of interactive experiences.
As VP and GM at Mythical Games UK (formerly CEO & Co-Founder of Polystream acquired by Mythical Games in Jan 2022), he continues to work with a trailblazing team who are disrupting everything we know about cloud native gaming and are the picks and shovels building the open 3D internet.
Phil Eisler, VP/GM
GeForce NOW Cloud Gaming
Nvidia
Phil joined Nvidia in 2009 as the General Manager of 3D Vision stereoscopic gaming before moving to GeForce NOW in 2011. He worked for over 20 years in semiconductors, computer graphics, and the gaming industry at LSI Logic, ATI Technologies, and AMD before joining NVIDIA. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and an MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
Nima Baiati, Executive Director and General Manager
Cybersecurity Solutions
Lenovo
Nima Baiati is the global executive leading Lenovo’s cybersecurity portfolio and solutions (i.e. ThinkShield). Prior to joining Lenovo, Nima led product Management and corporate Development for a leading security company where he successfully brought to market several new products to address below-OS level security. Nima also led the global go-to-market strategy organization for enterprise security at Symantec.
Nima has worked in several Silicon Valley start-ups in product and business development roles and began his career in finance and banking at Morgan Stanley. He is also advising numerous venture capital firms and start-ups both in Silicon Valley and in Israel. Nima earned his BSc. from the University of San Francisco and his MBA from Cornell University. He holds numerous certifications ranging from Certified Ethical Hacker, AWS and Cloud Security – as well as having completed additional coursework in emerging technologies, counter-terrorism and advanced finance.
Susie Ogihara, Business Analyst & Project Manager
Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory
Panasonic Research and Development
Susie brings over 25+ years of experience in project management involving customer engagement in various aspects of the entertainment hospitality arena. She is currently involved in many aspects of the hospitality and leisure industry that engages customer relations. PHL’s efforts provide sophisticated projection imaging to the themed entertainment industry and provides innovative and groundbreaking capturing and projection displaying technologies that enhance the customer experience. Susie also serves as Entertainment Development Council Member of the Urban Land Institute, the largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts.
At both Panasonic and the Urban Land Institute, Susie has been closely tracking her ecosystem’s needs and how remote work and play could be influencing their future.
Ziad Lammam, Head of Product
HP Anyware
Ziad Lammam leads product management, strategy and planning for HP Anyware (previously Teradici CAS) which provides secure remote access to digital workspaces. He has more than 20 years experience in the end-user computing industry, spanning desktop virtualization, remote workstations and cloud PCs. He’s passionate about creating unique and delightful customer experiences. Ziad holds a Masters in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia. Outside of the hybrid office, you’ll find him outdoors (skiing, running, cycling, volleyball).
Thomas Poppelgaard, CEO
Poppelgaard
With over 25 years of IT experience, Thomas works in Advisory, Business development, IT-strategy, Architectural designing, Planning, Implementation and troubleshooting capacities in Visual Computing, End-User Computing, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). He is regularly involved in “proof of concept” initiatives to help demonstrate why businesses should adopt new technologies.
In Client-Cloud computing, Thomas helps international Fortune 500 companies design their next generation data centers. He also consults for companies that are developing new generations of centralized computing platforms. For example, in the virtual reality industry, Thomas created the first remote virtual reality solution that live-streamed content from Norway to the USA. He also worked with Citrix to make it possible to stream high-performance VR to an IGEL thinOS client running an HTC Vive. He has also contributed to Nvidia’s CloudXR efforts.
Some of Thomas’ credits and accreditations across the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and End User Computing (EUC) ecosystems include Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Enterprise Mobility (RDS,WVD), Citrix Technology Professional (CTP), NVIDIA (NGCA), Parallels VIPP, VMware (vExpert) and EUC Champion, E2EVC Senator.
Tamar Shoham, CTO
Beamr
Tamar is a leading imaging and video scientist with over 20 years experience in algorithm development and industry-oriented research, primarily in the field of video quality and compression. As Beamr’s CTO, Tamar has been leading the algorithm development since inception, focused primarily on optimizing image and video content using compliant codec. Prior to joining Beamr, she was a research associate at the Technion Signal and Image Processing Lab, performing and supervising research for the Israeli CSO NEGEV consortium, and prior to that, was in the algorithm group in Comverse, pioneering video solutions in the company. Tamar holds a Bachelor of Science from Tel-Aviv University, and a Masters of Science with honors from the Technion Institute of Technology, both in Electrical Engineering. She has published many academic papers, is a primary inventor of 40 international patents to date and winner of a Technology & Engineering Emmy® award.
Dennis Mattoon, Principal Software Development Engineer
Microsoft Research
Co-Chair Marketing Work Group
Trusted Computing Group
As one of the founding members of the Security and Privacy Research and Engineering team in Microsoft Research, Dennis and his team have spent the last 12+ years focused on advances in trusted computing and system security. His most recent work has been on the Device Identifier Composition Engine Specifications (DICE), Robust and Resilient IoT (RIoT), and the Cyber-Resilient Platform Initiative.
In addition to chairing the Attestation, Supply Chain Security, and DICE workgroups, Dennis has previously represented Microsoft on TCG efforts including the D-RTM specification, development of the TPM 2.0 reference implementation, and was responsible for Microsoft partner enablement / adoption of TPM 2.0.
Tom Flynn, Chief Technologist Cloud Clients
HP
35 years in the computing industry have given Tom a breadth of experience. Among other things, Tom was a founding member of the Compaq Professional Services organization meeting the needs of the financial sector. He is also the inventor of the HP Blade PC solution, he worked on virtual client solutions before the term Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) was adopted, built on-demand utility computing solutions, and invented pc sharing solutions for education. Tom’s leadership experience includes engineering, sales and marketing, and services disciplines. He is an industry recognized expert, the author of numerous technical/solution papers, speaker at industry events, and holder of twenty-seven granted patents with many more pending approvals. Tom is a trusted advisor to HP’s customers, sales organization and key hardware and software suppliers. Tom’s current focus is driving the insight to innovations process and developing interesting technologies in the zero, thin and cloud client spaces.
Omid Rahmat, Executive Vice President
Jon Peddie Research
Omid Rahmat has extensive experience and knowledge of the management of hardware and software companies in computer graphics, digital media, and mobile development. Beginning his career in computer graphics at SPEA Video Seven, an early leader in graphics boards. He has worked in digital media as CEO of Tom’s Hardware and co-founder of Breaking Muscle. In addition, he has held leadership positions at SaaS vendor Citrix Online and music app Tully. He has also worked as a consultant at Intel, Microsoft, Salesforce, Samsung, and Google.
Ruben Spruijt, Senior Technologist
Nutanix
Formerly CTO of Frame (before being acquired by Nutanix), Ruben is a leading author, speaker, market analyst, and technologist in the End User Computing (EUC) field. Ruben contributes to Nutanix product development, supports customers with their EUC strategy, and analyzes related technology trends that impact the current and future of work. Ruben is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), Nvidia GRID Community Advisor, and was in the Citrix CTP and VMware vExpert programs for 10 years.
Daniel Blair, CEO
Bit Space Development
Bit Space Development Ltd is an XR studio focused on the creation of immersive learning experiences and research into the creation of digital twins. Driving their remote workforce, Daniel is an award-winning entrepreneur & software developer. Dan has been involved in developing experiences targeted towards remote language learning and classroom experiences, trades and tools training experiences, and advanced simulators that involve custom peripherals to make learning remotely more robust.
Srinivas Krishna, CEO
Geogram
In addition to being the CEO and Founder of Geogram, an XR collaboration platform for venues and events, he is also the founder of the augmented reality (AR) studio AWE Company. A recognized pioneer in mobile augmented reality, Srinivas has been developing patented AR technologies since 2011. Prior to his entry into augmented reality and virtual reality, Srinivas produced internationally distributed feature films that premiered at the Toronto, Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals. Known for combining his creativity with executive ability, Srinivas leads the development of Geogram’s culture of innovation, its operations and continued growth.
Ernest Spicer, CEO and Co-Founder
AgTech OS
Ernest Franklin Spicer is an experienced leader, executive, entrepreneur and expert level creative designer in Computer Vision and Sustainable Technology. Ernest’s passion for Data Science started over a decade ago in the financial sector, then transitioned into applications in Computer Vision and Drone Vision over the past 6 years. In 2017, Ernest began working on Quantum Computing, as well as, Transfer Learning applications in Keras; then shifted to PyTorch at its official launch. In 2019, Ernest began working on the bridge between Quantum Embedding of classical data into Computer Vision architecture. In the last 3 years, Ernest’s team has progressed to building collaborative applications from Nvidia, to integrate chemistry and physics applications for visualization of integral data for the agriculture industry.
Ernest began working in the sustainability technologies in 2008, starting with the solar industry, then pivoting into high voltage smart system integration for large factories and commercial buildings. In 2017, he began studying the chemistry behind agricultural materials and the viability of processing biomass into sustainable fuels, to supplant the fossil derivative petroleum industry. He is currently researching with several government and educational institutions, finding several economically viable solutions at a regional level. Plans are currently under development to work with the farmers and community to apply artificial intelligence and collaborative scientific work spaces to achieve carbon neutrality goals.
Kris Bliesner, CEO and Co-Founder
Vega Cloud
Vega Cloud builds and operates a SaaS platform for public cloud optimization. Vega’s focus is helping business achieve and maintain best practices for cloud infrastructure management including cost optimization and security. Kris is a cloud pioneer and has helped many large enterprises migrate to and then manage their public cloud infrastructure. Kris has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry and regularly speaks and writes about cloud optimization and cloud security.
Wanda Meloni, CEO, M2 Insights
Board of Directors Member, TIFCA
As CEO of M2 Insights Network, Wanda Meloni has become a sought-after international technology and entertainment strategist and has been working with top companies in digital media and entertainment for over 15 years. Focused on emerging technologies, she has a deep understanding of interactive media for content development, platforms/tech/games, community empowerment, customer engagement, and development trends. An avid supporter of diversity in the tech and games industry, Wanda works to support leadership opportunities in technology with a particular focus on women and minorities.
Wanda was also a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Open Gaming Alliance which TIFCA’s Alliance of Content Creators originated from.
Neil Schneider, Executive Director
TIFCA
Neil Schneider is best known for founding Meant to be Seen (mtbs3D.com), the first modern stereoscopic 3D gaming community and the launch point of products like the Oculus Rift, the Virtuix Omni, the open source Vireio Perception VR drivers, and more. Neil also served as Manager of Immersive Technology Services for the Faculty of Business and IT at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and was the founder of The Stereoscopic 3D Gaming Alliance which the Immersive Technology Alliance and TIFCA is born from.