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Key People

Management

Nova Spivack, CEO & Founder

Nova Spivack is a technology visionary and entrepreneur with nearly two decades of experience in pioneering ventures. In 1994, Mr. Spivack co-founded EarthWeb, one of the first Internet companies, where he was Executive Vice-President for Products, Strategy and Marketing. EarthWeb went public in 1999 and resulted in the Nasdaq's largest IPO single-day percentage point gain up to that point, spawning a wave of Tech IPOs. The company’s Dice.com property remained a strong stand-alone business until it was acquired for approximately $200 million in 2005.

Mr. Spivack has extensive experience working on knowledge representation and the Semantic Web, and has authored and helped to design several large (500 to 3000 class) ontologies in the OWL language, the W3C open standard for ontology specifications. Mr. Spivack has also been a lead advisor to SRI International on the DARPA CALO program, a distributed research program encompassing several hundred top researchers across over 20 major research institutions focused on next-generation semantically-aware machine learning applications, and in particular on the IRIS Semantic Desktop project. Also with SRI and Sarnoff Laboratories, Mr. Spivack helped to co-found nVention, SRI’s in-house technology incubator.

Mr. Spivack has a BA in Philosophy, with a focus on cognitive science and artificial intelligence, from Oberlin College and a CSS degree from the International Space University a NASA-funded graduate professional business school for the space industry. In 1999 Mr. Spivack’s interest in space gave him the opportunity to help pioneer the early days of space tourism when he flew to the edge of space with Space Adventures and did micro-gravity parabolic flight training with the Russian air force.

Mr. Spivack’s weblog, Minding the Planet, focuses on Radar Networks and emerging technologies and can be read at http://www.mindingtheplanet.net.

Lew Tucker, CTO & VP Engineering

No bio available. Add a bio.

Jim Wissner, Chief Software Architect

Jim Wissner has over 15 years of experience as a software engineer and architect in areas including data-mining, knowledge discovery, knowledge management, collaborative application platforms, advanced query and storage architectures, speech applications, and user-interfaces. He has also worked extensively with the Semantic Web with technologies including RDF, RDFS, OWL, semantic data storage, and semantic search applications.

Beginning with ObjectiveC he later spent 10 years working primarily with Java. In his work he seeks to integrate state-of-the-art development techniques and platforms with proven logical and mathematical models, including finite state machines, probabilistic linkage, and query optimization algorithms.

Mr. Wissner has lead architecture and development of the company’s core-technology platform since he began working with Nova Spivack in 2001. While at Radar Networks he was also the chief architect for the company’s work with SRI International and DARPA.

Prior to joining Radar Networks, Mr. Wissner worked as a consultant developing advanced software architectures for a variety of workflow, collaborative application, and CRM/ERM applications. He also worked as a consultant to develop new data-mining and probabilistic linking technologies for the Ontario Cancer Foundation.

Mr. Wissner also developed several widely-used open-source software projects related to XML user-interface development. Mr. Wissner has a B.S. in Computer Science from Grand Valley State University.

Board of Directors

Steve Hall

Steve Hall oversees technology venture investments for Vulcan Capital where his investment areas include next-generation Internet, data intelligence, and embedded networks. His current investments include Ember Corporation, Zoominfo, Radar Networks, and Imperium Renewables. Mr. Hall began venture investing with Prospect Street Ventures where his investment activity included About.com (acquired by NY Times), Multex Systems (acquired by Reuters), Live Advice (acquired by Ingenio) and Bigfoot Interactive (acquired by Alliance Data). Early in his venture career, Mr. Hall was profiled by UPSIDE magazine as a "VC to watch" in the article, "Bold: A New Generation is Changing the Face of Venture Capital." Mr. Hall was formerly a corporate attorney with White & Case in New York, where his M&A and securities transactions totaled over $2.5 billion. He is a frequent guest lecturer on venture capital investing and deal structuring at both Columbia Law School and UCLA Law School. Mr. Hall received his BA in business administration and BA in political science from Furman University and JD from Columbia University Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He is a member of the New York Bar. Mr. Hall’s weblog can be accessed at: http://nwvc.blogs.com.

Nova Spivack

View bio above.

Ross Levinsohn

Over the past 20 years, Ross had been on the forefront of media innovation and transformation. In 2004, he was tapped by News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch to devise the digital strategy for the company. In executing that plan, he helped transform the company to become the global leader amongst its peers in the digital media space through dynamic investments and strategic management, including the acquisitions of Myspace and IGN.com, which helped vault the company to create a digital powerhouse. He also oversaw the acquisitions of Askmen.com, Scout.com, Newroo, KSolo, amongst others.

As President of Fox Interactive Media, Ross managed all day-to-day operations for the company from its inception until December 2006. Under his leadership, the FOX Network of sites became one of the largest on the Internet with record setting growth with more than 140 million monthly users. He also oversaw a partnership with Google, which will yield the company nearly $1 billion in advertising from the search and monetization leader.

Previously, Ross served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Fox Sports Interactive Media. In this role, he oversaw the online, wireless and broadband presence for Fox Sports. Earlier in his career, Ross held senior management positions with AltaVista Network, an early pioneer and leader in search, CBS Sportsline, where he oversaw all content and development for the top rated sports site and pay cable giant HBO. He also spent time in advertising at Saatchi and Saatchi and in sports management and marketing with ProServ and Lapin and Rose Communications.

Ross currently serves on the board of music leader Napster.com, storage and media management leader Fabrik, Inc., Virtual World innovator VSIDE, and one of the leading Internet holding companies in India, Fuse+Media.

Baris Karadogan

Baris is a partner at Velocity Interactive Group who focuses on the Internet and digital media investments. Prior to joining Velocity Interactive Group, Baris worked six years at U.S. Venture Partners, a leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.

Baris’ recent board seats/investments include: Doppelganger, HIP Digital Media, Like.com, SpectraLinear, Redline Communications (LSE: REDL) and Aspendos Communications.

Before becoming a venture capitalist, Baris worked in both engineering and marketing at 3Com/U.S. Robotics, where he worked to develop the company's networking and cable industry products. His efforts at U.S. Robotics resulted in a number of U.S. patents. Baris holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Lafayette College, where he graduated summa cum laude.

Best way to get to know him is to read his blog, From Istanbul to Sand Hill Road which focuses on high technology, venture capital, innovation and creativity.

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