Paul Brigner is executive director of Internet and technology policy for Verizon where he is responsible for identifying emerging Internet and technology policy issues and developing corporate technology policy positions.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Brigner was an advocate for Verizon's regulatory policy positions at the Federal Communications Commission and had responsibility for proceedings involving broadband, video, homeland security, and emerging technologies.  He joined Verizon in 2001 as senior technical manager of information technology.

Before joining Verizon, Mr. Brigner was chief architect and assistant vice president of Digital Focus, where he led the development of many Java/J2EE enterprise software solutions for clients across a variety of industries. He received a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center and a bachelor of business, summa cum laude, from Stephen F. Austin State University.  He is currently pursing a master of business administration at Georgetown University - The McDonough School of Business. 

Dan Byers
Professional Staff, Science and Technology Committee,
U.S. House of Representatives

Dan Byers is a minority professional staffer for the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology. The Committee has oversight responsibility for most of the Federal government's civilian research and development programs and activities, including those at the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, and Transportation, as well as NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Prior to joining the Committee in February 2009, Mr. Byers served from 2005 to 2009 as deputy to the associate director for technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). In this role, he was responsible for overseeing policy development and coordination associated with a broad suite of technology policy issues, including multi-billion dollar federal S&T initiatives such as President Bush's American Competitiveness Initiative and Vision for Space Exploration, as well as the interagency Networking and Information Technology R&D Program (NITRD) and National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI).

From April 2007 to January 2009, Mr. Byers also worked for the White House National Economic Council where he was responsible for leading Bush Administration coordination of all matters relating to telecommunications policy and the Federal Communications Commission.

Prior to joining OSTP in 2005, he worked in various positions in the House of Representatives, most recently serving as staff director of the House Science Committee Subcommittee on Research from 2003 to 2005. He began work on Capitol Hill in 2000 as a science fellow for the Soil Science Society of America. He holds an M.S. in soil science from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in crop and soil environmental sciences from Virginia Tech. 

Michael Calabrese
VP, Wireless Future Program,
New America Foundation

Michael Calabrese is Vice President and Director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation, a non-profit think tank based in Washington, D.C. He oversees the Foundation's efforts to improve our nation's management of publicly-owned assets - particularly the public airwaves. New America has advocated open, unlicensed access to an increasing share of the airwaves to facilitate innovation and more affordable and ubiquitous community wireless broadband access.

Previously, Mr. Calabrese served as General Counsel of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and as benefits counsel at the national AFL-CIO. He is the co-author of three previous books on policy and politics and has published opinion articles in the nation's leading outlets, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

He is a graduate of Stanford Business and Law Schools, where he earned a JD/MBA degree; and a graduate of Harvard College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics and government.

Kelly Carnes
President and CEO,
TechVision21

Kelly Carnes is an entrepreneur and nationally recognized technology policy expert who has served the high tech industry for over 20 years, holding leadership positions in technology business, law and government. Ms. Carnes is president and CEO of TechVision21, a Washington, D.C.-based technology strategy firm.

Before founding TechVision21, Ms. Carnes served eight years at the highest levels of the U.S. government, working first as an aide to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and, later, as a senior technology policy advisor to four Secretaries of Commerce. Most recently, she served four years as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy where she represented the Administration before Congress, and was a liaison to, and advocate for, the technology business community.

Ms. Carnes served as a key point person on numerous high profile issues affecting technology businesses, including regulation of e-commerce, H-1B visas, the R&D tax credit, securities litigation reform, financial accounting standards and the high tech workforce shortage. She also helped lead the Administration's efforts to increase the representation of women and minorities in the nation's technology work force.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She also graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law School, where she served as Topics Editor for the Georgetown Law Journal.

David Carson
General Counsel,
U.S. Copyright Office

Prior to joining the Copyright Office, Mr. Carson practiced law for 16 years, most recently as a partner with the firm of Schwab Goldberg Price & Dannay in New York City. From 1981 through 1990, he was with the Beverly Hills entertainment law firm of Cooper, Epstein & Hurwitz. In both firms, his work centered on copyright law, with an emphasis on the publishing, entertainment and computer software industries. He wrote or co-wrote a number of articles on copyright, including "Copyright Protection for Factual Compilations after Feist: A Practitioner's View," published in the University of Dayton Law Review, and "Copyright Protection for Artificial Intelligence Systems," published in the proceedings of the World Intellectual Property Organization Worldwide Symposium on the Intellectual Property Aspects of Artificial Intelligence. He also co-edited a handbook on copyright law, published by the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

Mr. Carson is the principal author of numerous briefs in a number of appeals and in trial courts. These include the brief for the successful petitioner in the landmark Supreme Court case of Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell and the briefs of the prevailing parties in such cases as Girl Scouts of the United States of America v. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. and Arica Institute Inc. v. Helen Palmer and Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. He also previously served as chair of the Copyright Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.

Rachelle Chong 
Commissioner,
California Public Utilities Commission

Commissioner Rachelle Chong was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) by Governor Schwarzenegger in January 2006. She has been a career communications regulatory attorney, practicing both before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as well as the CPUC with the law firms of Kadison, Pfaelzer, Woodard, Quinn & Rossi and Graham & James.

In May 1994, President Clinton nominated Commissioner Chong to the FCC. She distinguished herself as an advocate of simple, pragmatic regulation, competitive communications markets and First Amendment rights. The FCC implemented the historic Telecommunications Act of 1996 during her tenure.

In November 1997, Commissioner Chong returned to private practice as a partner with Coudert Brothers, representing Internet and communications clients. In 2000, she became general counsel and vice president, government affairs for BroadBand Office. In August 2001, she became an entrepreneur, operating a retail shop and ecommerce site for five years. She is proud to be the first Asian American to serve as a Commissioner of the FCC and CPUC.

Jim Dempsey
Vice President for Public Policy,
Center for Democracy and Technology

Jim Dempsey, Vice President for Public Policy, has been with CDT since 1997. He served as Executive Director from 2003 to 2005; in 2005, he moved to San Francisco and launched CDT West. Mr. Dempsey concentrates on privacy, government surveillance, and national security issues. He coordinates the Digital Privacy and Security Working Group, a forum of over 50 computer and communications companies, trade associations and public interest organizations.

Prior to joining CDT, Mr. Dempsey was Deputy Director of the non-profit Center for National Security Studies and special counsel to the National Security Archive, a non-governmental organization that uses the Freedom of Information Act to gain the declassification of documents on the U.S. foreign policy.

From 1985 to 1995, Mr. Dempsey was assistant counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. His primary areas of responsibility for the Subcommittee were oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, privacy and civil liberties.

Judith Estrin
Author, Closing the Innovation Gap and
CEO, JLABS, LLC

Judy Estrin is CEO of JLABS, LLC, formerly known as Packet Design Management Company, LLC. She is the author of Closing the Innovation Gap, published in September, 2008. Prior to co-founding Packet Design, in May 2000, Estrin was chief technology officer for Cisco Systems. Beginning in 1981 Estrin co-founded three other successful technology companies: Bridge Communications, Network Computing Devices, and Precept Software. In 1998 Cisco Systems acquired Precept, and she became Cisco's chief technology officer until April 2000.

Ms. Estrin has been named three times to Fortune Magazine's list of the 50 most powerful women in American business. She sits on the boards of directors of The Walt Disney Company and FedEx Corporation as well as two private company boards - Packet Design, Inc. and Arch Rock. She also sits on the advisory councils of Stanford's School of Engineering and Stanford's Bio-X initiative.

She holds a bachelor's degree in math and computer science from UCLA, and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Doug Farry
Managing Director,
McKenna Long & Aldridge

Doug Farry is a managing director with the government affairs practice and chair of the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) practice of McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP. In his role with the government affairs practice, he provides strategic and tactical support for clients before the US House of Representatives, Senate and White House primarily on technology and telecommunications policy. He also focuses on financial services, energy and tax issues. He also spearheaded the launch of the McKenna Long & Aldridge sponsored RFID blog for which he serves as the lead correspondent.

Previously, Mr. Farry served for five years as senior policy advisor to House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX). During this time, he managed all legislative activity through the U.S. House of Representatives in coordination with the Senate leadership and the White House Legislative Affairs office. He also created what became known as the e-Contract with High Tech America, which shaped how Congress reviews and legislates issues affecting the IT industry. Much of that original language became the first technology-related position written for the 2000 Republican Party Platform.

He has provided counsel on how to communicate complicated and technical public policy issues to the public on such topics as broadband, biotechnology, spectrum reform and privacy. He managed final conference negotiations on major legislation including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN), the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act (SHVIA), the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-first Century Act of 2000 (H-1B Visa bill) and the Internet Tax Freedom Act. He also participated in final conference negotiations on major legislation including the USA PATRIOT Act, and the Homeland Security Act. 

Brett Glass
Owner and Founder,
LARIAT

In 1992, Brett Glass established LARIAT, the world's first wireless broadband Internet service provider as a 501(c)(12) Internet co-op and took it private a decade later at the request of the membership. LARIAT, located in Laramie, Wyoming, expands its coverage each year, reaching areas of rural Wyoming unserved by any form of terrestrial broadband. In addition to being the owner and founder of LARIAT, Mr. Glass is an electrical engineer, consultant, author, and inventor.

During his long and varied career, he has worked on MOS and CMOS chip designs, software products, computer designs and embedded systems. Mr. Glass also has authored more than 2,000 technology-related articles for computer-oriented and general interest publications, including BYTE, InfoWorld, PC Magazine, PC World, Multimedia World, PC/Computing, Programmer's Journal, Embedded Systems Programming, Dr. Dobb's Journal, Boardwatch, and The San Jose Mercury News.

Mr. Glass holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Case Institute of Technology (now part of Case Western Reserve University) and an MSEE from Stanford University.

Charles Harwood
Director, Northwest Division,
Federal Trade Commission

Charles Harwood has been the director of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Northwest Regional Office, located in Seattle, for 20 years.  Before that, Mr. Harwood served for six years as a counsel to the U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. 

Mr. Harwood speaks frequently on topics related to the FTC, including identity theft, telemarketing fraud, truth-in-advertising, international consumer protection law enforcement, Internet commerce and competition laws. During his time at the FTC, he has also represented the FTC on foreign advisory trips to Romania, Bosnia and Peru. In 2001, he received the FTC Chairman's Award for service to the agency and the public. He is .

He is a member of the Oregon and District of Columbia Bars.

Mark Heesen
President,
National Venture Capital Association

As president of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), Mark Heesen is responsible for setting the strategic direction for all association activities, including public policy efforts, research initiatives, educational programs, and member services. In this capacity, he works closely with the NVCA professional staff and board of directors to demonstrate the positive impact of venture capital investment on the United States economy.

Under his direction, the NVCA has created numerous value-added sub-groups including the CFO Task Force, Strategic Communications Group, Corporate Venture Capital Group, Medical Industry Group and Human Capital forum, all of which are dedicated to supporting NVCA membership in uniquely critical areas. Since 1991, Mr. Heesen has worked on behalf of the NVCA to enact a wide range of policies that benefit the venture capital and entrepreneurial communities, including a significant capital gains differential, securities litigation reform, numerous SEC and FASB accounting issues, immigration reform, and a streamlining of the FDA and CMS approval processes, among other issues.

Prior to coming to the NVCA, he was an aide to a former Governor of Pennsylvania and was Deputy Director for Federal Funds reporting to the Texas Legislature. He received a law degree with an emphasis in taxation from the Dickinson School of Law in 1984.   

Reid Hoffman
Chairman and CEO,
LinkedIn

As chairman, CEO, and co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman drives the company's vision and strategy. Prior to LinkedIn, Mr. Hoffman was executive vice president of PayPal where he was in charge of all business relationships: business development, corporate development, international, government relations and banking/payments infrastructure.

During his tenure at PayPal, he was instrumental to the acquisition by eBay and was responsible for partnerships with Intuit, Visa, MasterCard and Wells Fargo. He also has held management roles in significant technology companies, including Fujitsu Software Corporation and Apple.

In addition to LinkedIn, Mr. Hoffman serves on the board of directors for SixApart, Kiva.org and Mozilla Corporation. He graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in symbolic systems and from Oxford University with a master's degree in philosophy and a Marshall scholarship.  

Congressman Mike Honda has represented the 15th Congressional District of California in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2001. His diverse district includes Silicon Valley, the birthplace of technology innovation and the leading region for the development of the technologies of tomorrow.

Congressman Honda earned bachelor's degrees in biological sciences and Spanish, and a master's degree in education from San José State University. In his 30 years as an educator, he was a science teacher, served as a principal at two public schools, and conducted educational research at Stanford University.

In 1971, then-Mayor Norm Mineta appointed Congressman Honda to San Jose's Planning Commission. In 1981, he won his first election, gaining a seat on the San José Unified School Board. In 1990, he was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, where he led efforts to acquire and preserve open space in the county. He served in the California State Assembly from 1996 to 2000.

In 2000, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and serves on the Appropriations Committee, with postings on that body's Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Commerce, Justice, and Science, and Legislative Branch Subcommittees. As an appropriator, Congressman Honda focuses on directing funding to critical areas such as: access to affordable healthcare; worker training; port and border security; law enforcement and the safety of our neighborhoods; health care for our veterans; recovery from natural disasters, particularly Hurricane Katrina and recently Hurricane Ike.

He is also a leading advocate in favor of educational policies that would American students more competitive in critical areas such as science, technology, engineering and math.

Chris Hoofnagle 
Director, Information Privacy Programs,
Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

Chris Jay Hoofnagle is director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology's information privacy programs and senior fellow to the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. He is an expert in information privacy law. His recent work focuses on promoting competition among financial institutions to prevent identity theft. In Identity Theft: Making the Unknown Knowns Known, he discusses the problem of "synthetic identity theft," a form of crime where an impostor fabricates personal information and yet still can obtain credit accounts. He has long called attention to the civil liberties risks posed by private-sector database companies.

Prior to joining Berkeley Law, Mr. Hoofnagle was a non-residential fellow with Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. Prior to that, he focused on regulation of telemarketing, financial services privacy, and credit reporting at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. He co-chairs the annual Privacy Law Scholars Conference. He is licensed to practice in California and Washington, D.C.

David Hornik 
Partner,
August Capital

David Hornik joined August Capital in 2000. He invests broadly in information technology companies, with a focus on enterprise application and infrastructure software and consumer facing software and services.

Prior to joining August Capital, he was an intellectual property and corporate attorney at Venture Law Group, Cravath Swaine & Moore, and Perkins Coie LLP. In his legal practice, he represented high tech startups in all aspects of their formation, financing and operations, including Yahoo!, When.com (AOL), Sonique (Terra Lycos), Pure Payments (Excite@Home), BuyDirect (Beyond.com) and Ofoto (Kodak).

Mr. Hornik has an eclectic technology background. At Stanford, he studied and taught the impact of technology on music, earning a degree in Computer Music. At Cambridge, England, he explored the power of technology in tracking and combating bias crime, receiving an M.Phil. in Criminology. At Harvard Law School, from which he received a J.D., magna cum laude, he focused upon the convergence of technology and the law, serving as an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology and publishing papers on digital audio and software piracy.

He has taught business and law internationally and is a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. He currently sits on the board of directors of DoneRight, Nomis Solutions, PayCycle, Six Apart, Splunk Technology and VideoEgg. He previously served on the board of Evite which was acquired by Ticketmaster and was a board observer with Tickle Inc.(which was acquired by Monster) and Actional (which was acquired by Progress Software).

Larry Irving
Co-chair,
Internet Innovation Alliance

Larry Irving is co-chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance and the president and CEO of the Irving Information Group. Prior to founding the Irving Information Group, Mr. Irving served for almost seven years as assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information and administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), where he was a principal advisor to the President, Vice President and Secretary of Commerce on domestic and international telecommunications and information technology issues.

During his tenure as assistant secretary, the focus of Mr. Irving's work was opening domestic and foreign telecommunications markets to competition, ensuring consumer choice, and spurring development of advanced telecommunications and information infrastructures in rural and under served areas.

Mr. Irving was one of the principal architects and advocates of the Clinton Administration's telecommunications and Internet policies, and was a point person in the Clinton Administration's successful efforts to reform the United States telecommunications laws. Those efforts resulted in passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the most sweeping change in America's telecommunications laws in 60 years.

Mr. Irving is widely credited with coining the term the digital divide and sparking global interest in the growing problem it represents. He initiated and was the principal author of the landmark Federal survey, Falling Through the Net, which tracked access to telecommunications and information technologies, including telephones, computers and the Internet, across racial, economic, and geographic lines.

In large part due to his work to promote policies and develop programs to ensure access to advanced telecommunications and information technologies, Mr. Irving was named one of the fifty most influential persons in the 'Year of the Internet' by Newsweek Magazine.

Mitchell Kapor is chairman of a privately held startup named Xmarks that develops a free add-on for the Firefox browser. He is a pioneer of the personal computing revolution and has been at the forefront of information technology for 30 years as an entrepreneur, software designer, activist and investor.

Mr. Kapor is widely known as founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the "killer application" which made the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980s. He founded Lotus Development Corp. in 1982 and served as the president (later chairman) and CEO of Lotus from 1982 to 1986 and as a director until 1987.

After leaving executive management at Lotus, he spent time completing work on his favorite product, Lotus Agenda, the first application for Personal Information Management (PIM), and as a visiting scientist at MIT's Center for Cognitive Science and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. From 1987 to 1990, Mr. Kapor served as the chairman and CEO of ON Technology.

In 1990, he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and served as its chairman until 1994. He also chaired the Massachusetts Commission on Computer Technology and Law, which was chartered to investigate and report on issues raised by the problem of computer crime in the state, and served as a member of the Computer Science and Technology Board of the National Research Council and the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council.

Mr. Kapor has also played an important role in other organizations, as founding investor of UUNET; founding investor of RealNetworks; founder of the Open Source Applications Foundation; board member of the Level Playing Field Institute; founding chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, which makes the open source Web browser Firefox; and founding investor and chairman of the board for Linden Research, creator of Second Life.

He received a bachelor's degree from Yale College where he studied psychology, linguistics and computer science as part of an interdisciplinary major in cybernetics. 

Chris Kelly is the chief privacy officer and head of global public policy at Facebook, guiding Facebook's efforts to make the Internet a safer and more trusted place. He has previously served as chief privacy officer at three other Internet companies: Spoke Software, Excite@Home and Kendara.

As an attorney in private practice at Baker & McKenzie and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Mr. Kelly advised major Internet and media clients on the increasing challenges of intellectual property and privacy protection for the digital age. In the public sector, he served as an education advisor in the Clinton Administration.

He holds a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University, a master's degree in political science from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was editor in chief of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology and part of the founding team for the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Raman Khanna has over 20 years of operating experience and 14 years of investment experience in information technology. 

Prior to becoming a managing director of ONSET Ventures, Mr. Khanna co-founded Diamondhead Ventures in June 2000 where he led the firm's investments in Cavium Networks (IPO), Reactivity (acquired by Cisco Systems), PassMark Security (acquired by RSA Security/EMC), Orative (acquired by Cisco Systems), Intraspect (acquired by Vignette), Serus, FirstRain and Nitronex.

Prior to Diamondhead Ventures, Mr. Khanna worked at Stanford University for 16 years in various roles, including chief information officer and chief technology officer. During his Stanford tenue, he was actively involved with many high technology startups as an angel investor, advisor and board member. His portfolio included Berkeley Networks (acquired by Fore Systems), Postini (acquired by Google), Siara Networks (acquired by Redback), SupportSoft (IPO), Shopping.com (IPO), Selectica (IPO) and Entercept Security Technologies (acquired by McAfee).

At ONSET Ventures, he specializes in enterprise and Internet technologies, information security and commercializing disruptive technologies developed at leading research universities. He currently serves on the boards of MixerCast, Serus, FirstRain and Nitronex.

He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Delhi University, a master's degree in computer science from Virgina Tech and an MBA from Golden Gate University.

Chris King
Chief Strategy Officer,
eMeter

Chris King is Chief Strategy Officer of eMeter Corporation. A nationally recognized authority on energy regulation and competitive energy markets, Mr. King has worked with regulators and legislators on technology issues in electric restructuring, and grid management, including testifying before Congress.

Earlier, Mr. King was CEO and founder of Utility.com, which, until the California Energy Crisis, provided electric, gas and telecommunications services nationwide. Mr. King also served as Vice President-Regulatory Affairs and Vice President-Sales and Marketing for CellNet Data Systems. Mr. King has also directed various energy efficiency and time-of-use pricing programs at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the largest utility in the United States.

He holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in biological sciences from Stanford University, and a master's degree in management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Brian Knapp
Chief Operating Officer, 
Loopt

As chief operating officer for Loopt, Brian Knapp is responsible for leading the execution of day-to-day company activities and operations.

He was previously an associate with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati with a focus on intellectual property technology transactions. Prior to earning his law degree, Mr. Knapp held senior positions in business development and marketing with companies such as Barnes & Noble.com, Dun & Bradstreet, and AllBusiness.com. 

He has a bachelor of arts degree in business administration from the College of William & Mary and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

David Kralik
Director, Internet Strategy, 
American Solutions

Most recently, he was manager of Internet programs at the National Association of Manufacturers where he led the association to adopt blogging, podcasting, the widely popular CoolStuffBeingMade.com web site and a variety of other Web 2.0 initiatives before it was called "Web 2.0" that resulted in the association being widely recognized as a leader in e-communication. Earlier in his career, he was deputy communications director for Americans for Tax Reform. His work as executive director of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project led to it being mentioned on an episode of "The Simpsons."

Sarah Lai Stirland
Freelance Writer

Sarah Lai Stirland is a freelance writer in San Francisco. Between 2007 and 2008, she covered the 2008 US presidential election as a contributing writer to Wired.com and Threat Level, one of Time's favorite 25 blogs.

Prior to that, between 2004 and July 2006, she covered Congress and the courts for National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, D.C. where she wrote about the copyright wars that headed up to the Supreme Court, America's complex relationship with the idea of privacy and freedom in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and about what "competition" means in the Digital Age.

Some of her other stories have appeared in National Journal, Congress Daily, The Village Voice, The New York Post, The Online Journalism Review, The Seattle Times, Good Housekeeping, Business 2.0, Bloomberg Wealth Manager, Intellectual Property Watch and elsewhere.

Mark Lemley
William H. Neukom Professor of Law, 
Stanford Law School

Widely recognized as a preeminent scholar of intellectual property law, Mark Lemley is an accomplished litigator--having litigated cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and federal circuit courts--as well as a prolific writer with more than 100 published articles and six books. He has testified numerous times before Congress, the California legislature, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Antitrust Modernization Commission on patent, trade secret, antitrust, and constitutional law matters, and he is also a partner and founder in the firm Durie Tangri LLP.

His contributions to legal scholarship focus on how the economics and technology of the Internet affect patent law, copyright law, and trademark law; and at Stanford he currently acts as the Director of the Program in Law, Science & Technology, and the Director of the LLM Program in Law, Science & Technology. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2004, he was a professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and at the University of Texas School of Law. He also served as counsel at Fish & Richardson and Brown & Bain as well as clerked for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Lemley is co-author, along with Dan L. Burk, of a new book titled "The Patent Crisis and How Courts Can Solve It." 

Blair Levin
Managing Direcor, Stifel Nicolaus, 
Co-chair, Technology, Innovation and Government Reform working group, Obama-Biden Transition Team

Blair Levin joined the Stifel Nicolaus Research Team in connection with Stifel's acquisition of Legg Mason's Capital Markets Group in December of 2005. Mr. Levin joined Legg Mason in 2001 as the firm's principal telecom, media and tech regulatory and strategy analyst.

Prior to his position with the FCC, Mr. Levin was a partner in the North Carolina law firm of Parker Poe, Poe, Adams and Bernstein, where he represented new communications ventures, as well as numerous local governments on public financing issues. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren
Congresswoman, California's 16th District, 
U.S. House of Representatives

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1995, representing the 16th District of California, which is based in San Jose. A lifelong Bay Area resident, Rep. Lofgren earned her bachelor's degree at Stanford University and her law degree at Santa Clara University.

She served for eight years as a staff assistant to Congressman Don Edwards, in both his San Jose and Washington, D.C., offices. As partner at the San Jose firm Webber & Lofgren--where she practiced immigration law--she was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in 1980 and served for 14 years. Rep. Lofgren also taught immigration law at Santa Clara University School of Law from 1977 to 1980. In 1994, Edwards decided to retire after 32 years in Congress, and Lofgren won the Democratic nomination for the seat; she was the only freshman Democrat from west of the Rocky Mountains elected that year.

Rep. Lofgren is the chair of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. She is also a member of the Judiciary Committee, where she chairs the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law. In addition, she serves on the Homeland Security Committee and the Committee on House Administration where she chairs the Subcommittee on Elections. Rep. Lofgren is also chair of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation (CDCD). The delegation consists of the 33 Democratic members of the House of Representatives from California. It is the most diverse delegation in the House and outnumbers all other state House delegations.

Larry Magid
Technology journalist and Internet safety advocate

A syndicated technology columnist and broadcaster for more than two decades, Larry Magid contributes to CBS News, The New York Times and other media outlets. He served for 18 years as a technology columnist for the Los Angeles Times and his columns have also appeared in The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, CNN.com and numerous other newspapers and Web sites throughout the world.

His technology reports can now be heard several times a week on CBS Network and CBS affiliates throughout the United States and daily on KCBS in San Francisco, and he can be seen occasionally on CBS Evening News and local TV news stations. He has been a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and Public Radio International's Sound Money program, and has written for Fortune, ForbesASAP, Family Circle, PC Magazine and many other publications.

He founded SafeKids.com, SafeTeens.com and BlogSafety.com, and is the author of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's popular booklets, Child Safety on the Information Highway and Teen Safety on the Information Highway.

Fran Maier
CEO,
TRUSTe

Fran Maier, the CEO of TRUSTe, has 15+ years of experience building consumer brands and enhancing consumer trust. She is known for her expertise in online privacy, online marketing best practices, and marketing to women. As a co-founder of Match.com, she established credibility, safety and trust in online dating, making Match.com the favorite dating site for single women. In executive marketing roles at Women.com and Kmart's BlueLight.com subsidiary, Ms. Maier has both established new start-up online brands and brought blue-chip offline brands onto the Internet.

Since she joined TRUSTe in 2001, the company has evolved to expand consumer choice from Web sites to downloadable software. Under Ms. Maier's leadership, TRUSTe launched new trust services for businesses starting with development of the Sender Score Certified Program, formerly called the Bonded Sender Program, which is widely viewed as the leading legitimate sender program on the market. TRUSTe's latest network reputation service is the Trusted Download Program, which promotes ethical behavior by adware and other software companies by publishing a "whitelist" of certified applications. It is the first downloadable software standards program backed by industry leaders Yahoo! Search Marketing, CNET's Download.com, CA, AOL, and Verizon.

During that time, TRUSTe has strengthened its monitoring and dispute resolution platforms while growing in influence and certifying more than 2,000 websites. She speaks widely on the issues of privacy, security, and trust, has appeared before the Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Commerce, and has testified before the United States House of Representative's Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection.

She holds a bachelor's degree and an MBA from Stanford University and lives in Alameda, CA with her husband and two sons. 

Carl Malamud
President and CEO,
Public.Resource.Org

Prior to that, Mr. Malamud founded the Internet Multicasting Service, which was responsible for creating the first radio station on the Internet, the Internet 1996 World Exposition, and the SEC and Patent databases on the net.

He is the author of eight books and has served on the boards of numerous Internet nonprofits.

Mike Masnick
CEO, Floor64 and
Founder, Techdirt

Mike Masnick is the visionary behind Floor64, building up the core idea into reality and recruiting the management team. In addition to providing the strategic direction for the company, he oversees all editorial aspects of the Floor64's public and customer sites.

His insight into the realms of business and technology are the basis for his frequent posts to the award winning Techdirt blog. The widely followed, often quoted blog was launched in 1997.

Prior to founding Floor64 Inc., Mr. Masnick worked in business development and marketing at Release Software, an e-commerce startup, and in marketing at Intel. He has a bachelor's degree in Industrial and Labor Relations and an MBA -- both from Cornell University.

Declan McCullagh
Senior Writer,
News.com

Declan McCullagh is the chief political correspondent and senior writer for CNET's News.com. An award-winning journalist, Mr. McCullagh writes and speaks frequently about technology, law and politics. From 1998 to 2002, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News.

Previously, he was a reporter for TIME magazine, Time Digital Daily and The Netly News, as well as correspondent for HotWired. His articles have appeared in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and he has also appeared on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, ABC News' Good Morning America, NBC Evening News, Court TV and CNN.

He moderates Politech, a well-known mailing list looking broadly at politics and technology that he founded in 1994, and has been online since 1988. He was the first online reporter to join the National Press Club; he participated in the first White House dot com press pool; and was one of the first online journalists to receive credentials from the press gallery of the U.S. Congress.

Sascha Meinrath
Research Director,
New America Foundation

Sascha Meinrath is Research Director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation. An expert on community wireless networks and municipal broadband, Mr. Meinrath also coordinates the Open Source Wireless Coalition, a global partnership of open source wireless integrators, researchers, implementers and companies dedicated to the development of open source, interoperable, low-cost wireless technologies.

He is a regular contributor to MuniWireless.com, the leading source for municipal wireless news and information, and to Government Technology's Digital Communities. From 2004 to 2006, he was a policy analyst for Free Press in Washington, D.C. In 2006, he was elected Vice President of CTCNet, a U.S.-based network of more than 1,000 organizations committed to improving the educational, economic, cultural, and political life of their communities through technology.

Mr. Meinrath has also worked with the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) and is the President of the Acorn Active Media Foundation, which engages in open source software, website, and technical development in support of the Global Justice Movement. He is the founder of the Ethos Group and a co-founder of the CUWiN Foundation.

A graduate of Yale University, he holds a master's degree in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is a Telecommunications Fellow at the University of Illinois, where he is completing his Ph.D. on community empowerment and the impact and interaction of participatory media, wireless communications, and emergent technologies.

Ellen Miller
Co-founder and Executive Director,
The Sunlight Foundation

Ellen Miller is the co-founder and executive director of The Sunlight Foundation. Prior to assuming this position in January 2006, she served as deputy director of Campaign for America's Future, where she directed its Project for an Accountable Congress. She is the founder of two prominent Washington-based organizations in the field of money and politics -- the Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign -- and a nationally recognized expert on campaign finance and ethics issues.

She is a well-recognized public speaker, commentator and writer on these issues. She has written frequently for TomPaine.com, The Hill, The America Prospect and The Nation. Her experience as a Washington advocate for more than 35 years spans the worlds of public interest advocacy, grass roots activism and journalism. In addition to her more than two decades of work on the issue of money in politics, Ms. Miller was the publisher of TomPaine.com and a senior fellow at The American Prospect. She spent nearly a decade working on Capitol Hill.

Eric Miller
Chief Solutions Officer,
Trilliant

Eric Miller's career in the energy industry spans more than 25 years, combining entrepreneurial, strategic, marketing and product leadership in the areas of enterprise software, energy efficiency, customer data collection, renewable energy development and wholesale power marketing.

Prior to joining Trilliant, Mr. Miller was vice president of software for Itron and vice president of strategy for Silicon Energy.

He holds a master's degree in resource systems from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and a bachelor's degree in physics from Colorado College.

Walt Mossberg 
Technology Columnist, The Wall Street Journal
Co-Executive Editor, AllThingsD.com

Walt Mossberg is the author and creator of the weekly Personal Technology column in The Wall Street Journal, which has appeared every Thursday since 1991.

With Kara Swisher, he currently co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. In addition to Personal Technology, Mr. Mossberg also writes the Mossberg's Mailbox column in the Journal and edits the Mossberg Solution column, which is authored by his colleague Katherine Boehret.

In a major 2004 profile of Mr. Mossberg, entitled "The Kingmaker," Wired Magazine declared: "Few reviewers have held so much power to shape an industry's successes and failures." Mr. Mossberg was awarded the 1999 Loeb award for Commentary, the only technology writer to be so honored. In May of 2001, he received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Rhode Island. In May of 2002, he was inducted into the ranks of the Business News Luminaries, the hall of fame for business journalists. That same year, he won the World Technology Award for Media and Journalism.

Mr. Mossberg has been a reporter and editor at the Journal since 1970. He is based in the Journal's Washington, D.C., office, where he spent 18 years covering national and international affairs before turning his attention to technology.

He holds degrees from Brandeis University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Craig Newmark is a senior Web-oriented software engineer with over 25 years of experience, including 18 years at IBM. He has become a leader in online community by virtue of running craigslist.org, the site he founded in 1995.

Using a common sense, down-to-earth approach, craigslist strives to make the Internet more personal and authentic, while advocating social responsibility through the promotion of small, non-profit organizations. Mr. Newmark continues to help the craigslist community, assisting with customer service issues like spam and scam complaints. He has been featured in the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, BusinessWeek, TIME magazine, and Esquire magazine.

His community activities include being on the advisory boards of Climate Theatre and Haight-Ashbury Food Program, as well as supporting local writers through Grotto Nights. He also serves on the board of The Sunlight Foundation.

He received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in computer science from Case Western Reserve University.

Tim O'Reilly
Founder and CEO,
O'Reilly Media

Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O'Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the Web 2.0 Summit, the Web 2.0 Expo, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference and the new Gov 2.0 Summit. 

His blog, the O'Reilly Radar, "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. He is an activist for open source and open standards, and an opponent of software patents and other incursions of new intellectual property laws into the public domain. His long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.

Shawn Lawrence Otto
Co-founder,
Science Debate

Shawn Lawrence Otto is a writer and co-founder of Science Debate, a non-partisan citizens initiative to elevate science issues in the American political dialog, supported by the presidents of over 100 leading American universities, dozens of Nobel laureates, major CEOs, and nearly every major American science and engineering organization.

When he's not cheering for science in America, he's working as a writer and director in Hollywood. He is best known for the Oscar-nominated House of Sand and Fog. He currently lives in Minnesota, where he is married to Rebecca Otto, the current State Auditor.

Mr. Otto's works have won numerous awards including an Alfred P Sloan fellowship for best science screenplay, A McKnight Artist Fellowship, and a finalist for a Pen Center award. He serves as a judge for the prestigious Writer's Guild of America Awards, and is the chair-elect of the Loft, America's largest literary center.

He graduated from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, studying psychology, physics, neuroscience and philosophy. He has been a guest lecturer on creative writing and drama at several colleges and universities, and has made numerous national and international television, radio, and print appearances including NPR's Talk of the Nation, Earth & Sky Radio, Radio New Zealand, German Public Radio, PBS, CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, Lehrer NewHour, BusinessWeek, the New York Times, Salon.com, Newsday, Science, Huffington Post, and many others.

Originally trained in Architecture, he designed and built the Ottos' wind-powered, geothermal, passive solar home with his own hands; the home has been featured in local and national publications and toured by thousands of people as an example of green building.

Nicole Ozer
Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director,
ACLU of Northern California

Nicole Ozer is the technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California, working on the intersection of technology, privacy and free speech.

Ms. Ozer graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, studied comparative civil rights history at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and earned her J.D. with a certificate in Law and Technology from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley.

Before joining the ACLU, Ms. Ozer was an intellectual property litigator at Morrison & Foerster LLP. She was recognized by San Jose Magazine in 2001 for being one of 20 "Women Making a Mark" in Silicon Valley.

She has written on civil liberties and technology issues for the Daily Journal, San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle. Her legal publications include No Such Thing as Free Internet, New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy (forthcoming 2009);  Companies Positioned in the Middle: Municipal Wireless and Its Impact on Privacy and Free Speech; Rights "Chipped" Away: RFID in Identification Documents; Under the Watchful Eye: The Proliferation of Video Surveillance Systems in California.  

Matt Parrella
Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of CHIP Unit,
U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California

Assistant United States Attorney Matt Parrella is currently the Chief of the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California (NDCA), where he also serves as the San Jose Branch Chief. The NDCA CHIP Unit, which was the first created in the nation, is based in Silicon Valley and investigates and prosecutes complex trade secret theft, economic espionage, computer intrusion, and other high tech and intellectual property crimes.

Mr. Parrella is a career prosecutor with over 23 years experience in both U.S. Attorney's and District Attorney's Offices across the nation. He has personally prosecuted cases ranging from murder, narcotics, money laundering, and arson, to computer hacking, tax, export violations, IP crimes, trade secret violations and economic espionage.

Andrew Rasiej
Co-founder, Personal Democracy Forum and
Co-founder, techPresident

Mr. Rasiej is also the founder and chairman of MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), an educational nonprofit organization started in 1997 focused on providing technology support to public schools. Mr. Rasiej has served on the 2001 New York City Board of Education's task force on technology and has spearheaded several other innovative projects that support efforts to bridge the digital divide in public education.

In addition, he is a co-founder of a Beirut-based news service that translates opinion pieces from newspapers in all 22 Arab countries, Iran and the Arab media Diaspora and makes them available to English-speaking governments, corporations, media and educational institutions.

Chris Sacca
Founder,
Lowercase Capital

Christopher Sacca is a venture investor, private equity principal, company adviser, and entrepreneur managing a portfolio of 18 consumer web, mobile, and wireless technology start-ups as well as an array of mature enterprises through his holding company, Lowercase Capital.

Previously, he served as Head of Special Initiatives at Google Inc. In that role, among other responsibilities, he headed up the alternative access division. His most visible projects include Google's 700MHz and TV white spaces spectrum initiatives, the company's groundbreaking data center in The Dalles, OR and Google's free citywide WiFi network in Mountain View, CA. He also spearheaded many of Google's business development and M&A transactions.

Most recently, Mr. Sacca proudly worked on President Barack Obama's campaign as a Telecommunications, Media, and Technology adviser, a speaking surrogate, a field office volunteer, and as Co-Chair of Finance and a Trustee of the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

The Wall Street Journal cited Mr. Sacca as "possibly the most influential businessman in America." He was also recently recognized as a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, annually selecting 20 of the world's most promising leaders and public servants under the age of 45. In addition, he serves as an Associate Fellow of the Said Business School at Oxford University.

Before joining Google, he held a number of executive roles at one of the world's largest streaming and digital media distribution companies, Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai Technologies), and was ultimately responsible for their legal and corporate development efforts. Prior to Speedera, he was an attorney with the Silicon Valley law firm of Fenwick & West where he handled venture capital, mergers & acquisitions, and licensing transactions for technology clients such as Macromedia, VeriSign, and Kleiner Perkins. Before arriving in Silicon Valley, Mr. Sacca lived and worked in Europe and Latin America.

Mr. Sacca graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center where he was a member of The Tax Lawyer law review and was honored as the school's Philip A. Ryan and Ralph J. Gilbert Memorial Scholar. He also graduated cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and was an Edmund Evans Memorial Scholar as well as a Weeks Family Foundation Scholar. He also attended university at each of Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Quito, Ecuador, University College Cork, in Cork, Ireland, and the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain.

He lives in San Francisco and is an avid Pacifica surfer, San Mateo kitesurfer, Lake Tahoe skier, and Ironman triathlete.

Bill Schrier
CTO and Director, Department of Information Technology,
City of Seattle

Bill Schrier is director of the department of information technology and chief technology officer of the City of Seattle. Increasingly, people use technology - telephones, computers, e-mail, the world-wide-web, the Internet - to contact their government for service.

Elected officials and City departments use the tools of technology - radios, telephones, computers, software applications, the Web, television- to deliver service to residents, and also to inform and involve constituents in the matters of government.

The CTO and department of information technology make sure these technology tools are up-to-date, efficient and effective in the business of government - thereby making a difference in the lives of the people of Seattle. 

Robert Scoble
Managing Director, 
Building43

Robert Scoble is a blogger, technical evangelist and author. He is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft.

He recently announced that he was leaving Fast Company where he had been working as a video blogger to join Rackspace for the launch of Building43. The mission of Building43 is to build a place for people fanatical about the Internet. 

He is also the co-author of "Naked Converations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers" with Shel Israel.

Bryan Seal
Chief Smart Grid Strategy Officer, 
SmartSynch

Bryan Seal joined SmartSynch in May 2005 to lead SmartSynch's software, hardware and firmware development efforts as vice president of engineering and was named chief knowledge officer in January 2007. Today, Mr. Seal serves as chief smart grid strategy officer.

Mr. Seal brings 23 years of utility distribution and meter engineering experience to SmartSynch from Mississippi Power Company (MPC), a subsidiary of The Southern Company. At MPC, he led the Metering Services Group's automatic meter reading (AMR) projects from 1986 until 2005. Additionally, he served on The Southern Company Metering Services Technical Committee that oversaw all metering technology solutions deployed throughout The Southern Company's four-state service region.

He is a 1982 graduate of Mississippi State University with a degree in electrical engineering.

Gary Shapiro
President and CEO, 
Consumer Electronics Association

Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the U.S. trade association representing some 2,200 consumer electronics companies and owning and producing the world's largest tradeshow for consumer technology, the International CES.

Mr. Shapiro is an active leader in the development, launch and marketing of HDTV. He has testified before Congress on HDTV and other technology and business issues more than 20 times. He co-founded and chaired the HDTV Model Station and has served as a leader of the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC). He is a charter inductee to the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers, and in 2003 received its highest award as the industry leader most influential in advancing HDTV.

As chairman of the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC), Mr. Shapiro has led the manufacturers' legal and legislative battle to preserve the legality of recording technology and the consumer battle to protect fair use rights. He has held many exhibition industry leadership posts and, in 2002, received the exhibition industry's highest honor, the IAEM Pinnacle Award. He also serves on the Board of Visitors of George Mason University, Virginia's largest university, and is a member of the board of directors of the Northern Virginia Technology Council. He also served as a member of the Commonwealth of Virginia's Commission on Information Technology.

Prior to joining the Consumer Electronics Association, he was an associate at the law firm of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey. He also has worked on Capitol Hill as an assistant to a member of Congress. He received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a double major in economics and psychology from the State University of New York, Binghamton.

Gigi Sohn
President and Co-Founder, 
Public Knowledge