Gene Becker (@genebecker) is a leader in emerging technologies that blend the physical and digital worlds. As Layar’s US-based AR Strategist, Gene is responsible for building the creative ecosystem for the Layar augmented reality platform, working with brands, creative agencies, developers and grassroots AR enthusiasts. Prior to joining Layar, Gene was a director at Hewlett-Packard, where he led advanced research and business development for web-based mobile and ubiquitous computing, co-founded a cloud services business, and led worldwide R&D for extreme gaming and mobility brand Voodoo PC. He is the founder of strategy consultancy Lightning Laboratories, a co-founder of the ARDevCamp unconference and organizer of the Ubiquitous Media Studio meetup. Gene studied engineering and computer science at MIT and Stanford, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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As CEO of Viewdle, Laurent Gil leads the company's technology, marketing, business, and corporate development strategy. Prior to Viewdle, Laurent spent over five years in investment banking as a senior investment banker in corporate finance and capital markets at the French investment bank Credit Agricole. During his MBA at Wharton, Laurent helped establish a boutique investment bank in Brazil, which completed large transactions in the telecom sector in Latin America. He co-founded and served as CFO of TAHO, a wireless internet service provider in Rio de Janeiro, which raised U.S. $10M in 2001 to develop a broadband wireless internet network in Latin America. Before leaving Brazil, he co-created IdeaValley, the leading provider of electronic paper in Latin America. Most recently, Laurent spent two years in West Africa deploying wireless networks in high schools, for a non-profit organization he founded.

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Samir Kumar is a seasoned technology professional with 10+ years of industry experience (mobile technologies and enterprise software/services) with background in product management, product planning and business development. . He’s currently leads the North American technology sourcing team for Samsung’s mobile division. The team is focused on finding on the next generation of compelling hardware, software and cloud services solution to differentiate Samsung’s smartphone and tablet device portfolio. In this role he cultivates relationships with the startup ecosystem in the US as well as the venture capital community in Silicon Valley. His responsibilities also include identifying and projecting disruptive technology trends and the impact they will have on Samsung’s mobile business.  As such Samir looks to “connect the dots” across various technology scenarios to help define new and unique propositions.

Prior to Samsung Samir was a product line manager at Palm driving the enterprise strategy for Palm  webOS as well directing product management for maps, location and system performance.  Prior to Palm Samir was at Microsoft for 9 years where he drove the enterprise product strategy for Windows Mobile including a lead a small team of senior product planners. Samir holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University.

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Xavier Leonard is a designer, educator and ICT (information and communications technology) activist. He was the founding director of Heads on Fire and the Heads on Fire Fab Lab. The Heads on Fire program was selected as a national model in the U.S. for teaching technology in out-of-school settings. In 2010, he created Designers for Humanity, a model for delivering science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) experiences through a service-learning project aimed at fostering innovation and providing an engineering solution for a specific community problem.

Leonard is a graduate of Columbia University and has been honored as a Z-Fellow of the Zero Divide Foundation, an Ideas Institute Fellow of the MIT Media Lab, and a TEC Champion by the United States Congress.  His design projects have been presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Franklin Furnace, NYC; The Knitting Factory, NYC; and the Centre International Francais, Ouagadougo, Burkina Faso, among other venues. His work has been supported by the Western States Arts Federation Fellowship; the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts; the Institute of International Education; the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and New American Radio.

Leonard has spoken on the deployment of technology to empower and develop communities at the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia; the Air Jaldi Summit on Wireless Technologies in Dharamsala, India; the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks; the Nonprofit Technology Network Conference; the Community Technology Center Network Conference; TEDx America’s Finest City and other national and global events.

Leonard is a Communications and Media Specialist with the Center On Policy Initiatives and Senior Fellow in Emerging Technology at the San Diego State University Visualization Center.

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Taylor McDonald serves as the President and Co-Founder of Second|Site, a technology company focused on bridging geospatial information with the Augmented Reality environment. Based in Chattanooga, TN, the team at Second|Site has a combined 40 years of professional experience in GIS technologies and media development for various federal, state, and privately funded GIS research initiatives.  Taylor and the Second|Site team are quietly setting new standards with respect to quality of AR content while developing an international reputation for innovation and creativity.

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Brian Mullins is not a man who dreams small.  On his to-do list? Launching a publishing platform on the order of YouTube and WordPress, creating a new mass market for 3D digital models, and democratizing the nascent augmented reality industry so that anyone and everyone can start adding digital content to their physical world.

And that’s just over the next year or two.  After that, he has in mind changing how the entire manufacturing industry operates, and reinventing the educational system by “presenting the sum total of human knowledge in the most effective way possible.”

Brian’s vehicle for achieving these goals is daqri, the Orange County-based AR startup where he is co-founder and CEO.

Brian believes that technology is so important to our ability to function in business and life that it is becoming a liberty all should have access to.

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Brian Selzer is the co-founder, president and chief creative officer of Ogmento, a developer of location-based, augmented reality games and entertainment. Ogmento is a venture-backed company, the first of its kind built from the ground up to focus on mobile location and augmented reality for gaming. Selzer made his career pushing the boundaries of digital media and interactive entertainment for over 15 years. He has created, produced, marketed and distributed online and mobile content to a client list that includes Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers, Sony, Activision, EA, Marvel, Hasbro, Nike, NBA and Lego.

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Sam Shpigelman is an active CG artist with extensive experience in animation, casual games, game and mobile applications development, medical and architectural pre-visualization, and product design and modeling. His latest projects include: automotive prototyping and high quality stereoscopic rendering of the Lexus GX460 for Lexus Motors; product design, modeling and prototyping for the next generation of cell phones from Qualcomm; and pre-visualizing the City of San Diego’s architectural redevelopment of the Crossings (an entire city block by
the Solana Beach Train Station). He is a Program Advisor and Program Developer for the Digital Arts Center at UCSD
Extension where he manages the Casual Game Development and Mobile Applications Development educational programs.

Sam holds a lecturer position at the school of Theatre, Television and Film at San Diego State University, where he teaches a variety of animation and compositing classes to students across multiple disciplines including film, television, theatre, art and multimedia.

Sam previously taught in the Media Art & Animation and Game Art & Design programs at the Art Institute of California – San Diego. His classes ranged from basic 3D animation and modeling to advanced 3D visual effects and portfolio-studio classes. Sam continues to teach at the Art Institute of Online.

Sam holds Master of Fine Arts degree in Computer Animation from Miami International University of Art & Design and Bachelor of Science degree in Game Art & Design from Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Greg is an architectural designer/film-maker who recently won the Thesis Prize at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  His research pushes the conventions of architecture and human experience through innovations in technology, media and music.  He is an emerging expert in Digital 3d and augmented environments and strongly believes in a cross-disciplinary approach to design.  

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Brian D. Wassom is a First Amendment lawyer in the broadest sense of the term. He primarily litigates copyright, trademark, publicity rights, entertainment, and related IP issues, all of which involve drawing the boundaries of legally sanctioned monopolies over creative expression and otherwise-free speech. He also assists media companies and journalists in exercising their freedom of the press, by helping them obtain access to information and defending them from claims of defamation, invasion of privacy, eavesdropping, and the like.

Brian authors the legal blog Wassom.com, which addresses the law of social and emerging media. A regular feature of that blog is "Augmented Legality," the world's first publication dedicated to analyzing the legal principles that will govern the use of augmented reality technology. 

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Jay Wright is responsible for developing and driving Qualcomm’s augmented reality commercialization strategy. In this role, Mr. Wright handles partnerships with leading innovators in industry and academia, and leads Qualcomm’s efforts in enabling augmented reality within the mobile ecosystem. Mr. Wright has been with Qualcomm since January 2008, and brings 17 years of experience in developing software and services for mobile and wireless devices. Beginning in 1993 with the launch of Apple’s Newton PDA, Mr. Wright envisioned that low-cost consumer devices would enable a new wave of enterprise automation for mobile workers. As Founder and CEO of Wright Strategies Inc., he led the development of tools and software infrastructure that enabled Windows solution providers to develop and deploy PDA applications capable of synchronizing data with enterprise data sources. The company’s FormLogic software platform was used to deploy tens of thousands of devices for industry leaders including Anheuser Busch, Apple, Disney, Hasbro, Maybelline, Microsoft, and Taco Bell. As an inventor and software engineer Mr. Wright holds three patents – two of which encompass data synchronization between mobile devices and have been regarded as landmark patents in the field of wireless email.