Israel’s official dot com.petition Presenting the selected and most promising Israeli Web 2.0 srartups

Brian Solis, Future Works and PR 2.0

Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks (www.future-works.com), an award-winning PR agency in Silicon Valley. Solis blogs at PR2.0 (www.briansolis.com), bub.blicio.us, and regularly contributes PR and tech comments and articles to industry sites and publications. Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club (www.socialmediaclub.com), is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, and also is a contributor to the http://www.socialmediatoday.com and ConversationalMedia.org

Andrew Baron, Rocketboom

Andrew Baron is the creator and founder of the popular daily video show, Rocketboom. After receiving a BA in Philosophy from Bates College, Baron graduated with an MFA in Design and Technology in 2003 from Parsons in New York City, where he went on to teach graduate and undergraduate courses. He was teaching at Parsons and MIT when the notion of Rocketboom came to him in 2004. Although he has little interest in television (and has not owned a TV set during the past decade), Baron has always been inspired by the implications of the democratization of media. For more information see: www.rocketboom.com; www.friendfeed.com/andrewbaron

Rafe Needleman, Editor at Large - CNET

Rafe Needleman is Editor at large for CNET Networks and Editor of CNET's Webware.com, a site about Web-based products and startups. Rafe has been a technology editor and writer since 1988. His experience and perspective makes him a keen judge of what works and what doesn't. Previously, Rafe wrote Catch of the Day for Red Herring. He has written for Business 2.0, Always On, and Release 1.0. He has also edited several publications, including Byte Magazine, where he was editor in chief.

Rupert Schäfer, Hubert Burda Media R&D

He produces the DLD conference and is senior project manager for digital innovation at Hubert Burda Media R&D. He is involved in the management of the investments Sevenload, Mydeco and Glam.

Ron Conway, angel investor

Ron Conway is an angel investor in Silicon Valley. He has made over 20 investments in Web 2.0 companies. Ron Conway also runs Baseline Ventures, an early-stage seed capital firm. Conway was one of the first investors in Google. Conway is featured in Gary Rivlin’s book The Godfather of Silicon Valley: Ron Conway and the Fall of the Dot-coms, described as ‘the man who has placed more bets on Internet start-ups than anyone else in Silicon Valley.

Saul Klein, Index Ventures

Saul is currently a Partner at Index Ventures. Before joining Index, he served as the global VP of marketing and e-commerce for Skype (purchased by eBay), where he is currently still an advisor. Prior to Skype, Saul co-founded and served as CEO for Video Island, an Index-funded venture that recently merged with LoveFilm to become Europe’s leading online DVD rental and movie download service.

Dave Sifry, entrepreneur

Dave Sifry is a entrepreneur with over 20 years experience in the I.T. industry. Most recently, he founded Offbeat Guides (www.offbeatguides.com), a company that creates personalized, on-demand travel guides for over 30,000 worldwide destinations. Prior to that, he founded Technorati, the largest blog search engine in the world, and was CEO from 2002-2007. He is Chairman of Technorati's Board of Directors. Dave was a co-founder and the CTO of Sputnik. Prior to Sputnik, he was co-founder, CTO, and Vice President of Engineering at Linuxcare, Inc, having built Linuxcare's services infrastructure. Dave is a recognized expert on leadership development, blogs and the massive changes in the digital media environment, Open Source development, and the Linux operating system. He served on the founding Board of Directors of Linux International, the Advisory Board of the National White Collar Crime Center, the Technical Advisory Board of the National Cybercrime Training Partnership for law enforcement, and currently serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University. Dave lived and worked in Kobe, Japan for Mitsubishi Electric, and speaks Japanese in a rusty kansai-ben. While he now lives in foggy San Francisco, one of his top travel destinations is Yosemite, in his home state of California, although the lure of London and Paris frequently beckons.

Meir Brand, Country Manager, Google Israel

In Sep 2005, Meir Brand was appointed to set up and lead Google's operations in Israel as Country Manager for Google Israel. Brand has a 12 year successful track record as a business and marketing executive with leading global companies such as: Microsoft, Booz Allen & Hamilton, and P&G. He is an experienced internet veteran and joined his first Internet company in 1999 as Business Development Manager at Excite@Home and later as VP Sales and Marketing for ICQ (AOL Timewarner). Meir holds a Master's in Business Administration from Harvard University Graduate School of Business (Honors) and B.A in Economics from Tel Aviv University (Magna Cum Laude). Brand has lived and worked in Europe, Israel and the U.S and speaks English, Hebrew, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Gil Ben-Artzy, Yahoo!

Gil Ben-Artzy joined Yahoo! in 2005, and spent 3.5 years in the Corporate Development group working on business strategies, acquisition strategies and internal investments. Among his responsibilities, he managed the relationships with Israeli VCs, entrepreneurs and start-ups, leading the FoxyTunes acquisition and helping to open the R&D Center in Haifa. Gil recently transitioned to the tech infrastructure group, where he’s the Head of Operations Management. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Gil was a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in NYC, where he advised Fortune 500 companies. Gil holds a BA in Economics & Business Administration from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Joey Simhon, Co-CEO & CTO, Netcraft

Joey is a web technologist, architect, evangelist and enthusiast. Joey co-founded Netcraft, a professional services firm that specializes in high-end web oriented solutions, alongside Uzi Shmilovici and has been in charge of its technology group ever since. He had the privilege of taking part in numerous project during the past few years and enjoys all things web, whether it’s a complex architecture, rich user interface implementation or new emerging technologies. Joey suffers from a serious basketball fever so feel free to invite him to shoot some hoops.

Yair Goldfinger, co-founder and CTO of Dotomi

Being a co-founder and CTO of Dotomi, an online direct marketing leader, Mr. Goldfinger is a passionate supporter and investor in the Israeli hi-tech Industry. Prior to Dotomi, he has co-founded ICQ, the world first Internet-wide Instant Messaging (acquired by AOL in 1998), and served as its CTO, credited with the development of Instant Messaging. He holds a B.A. in Math and Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University. He was awarded with the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award in 2005.

Ofer Adler, Co-Founder/CEO Incredimail

One of the founders, and CEO of IncrediMail, and one of the first investors of Metacafe.Com and Etoro.Com. Interested in everything to do with Internet; GUI, UI, information gathering methods, email, communication, and interesting ideas in general. Likes to (and wants to do more of some day...) Windsurf, Skydive, Snowboard, RC helicopters, and many more. Before IncrediMail, spent around 8 years in the local capital market, out of which 3 years as a broker in the Tel-Aviv stock exchange market.

Itzik Ben Bassat, co-founder of MediaArcade

MediaArcade is a partnership that specializes in initiating and developing Israeli based internet startups. Prior to that Itzik served as VP of Global Business Development and Intl Operations at Blizzard Entertainment and spearheaded the company’s global presence by creating and implementing business plans that lay the foundation for the operations of Blizzard’s blockbuster online game service World Of WarCraft. Itzik also served in executive roles at Vivendi Universal and Exent Technologies and was among the founders of the Israeli e-commerce site Mitos.

Izhar Shay, Canaan Partners ,Venture Partner

Izhar Shay has been the head of Canaan’s Israel operations since 2005. With more than 20 years of operational experience, Izhar was previously Chairman and CEO of V-Secure Technologies, which was acquired by Radware (RDWR) in December 2005. Previously, Izhar was CEO and co-founder of Business Layers, a Canaan portfolio company. Izhar led Business Layers from startup to a dominant player position in the identity management market, until it was acquired by Netegrity (NETE) in December 2003. Izhar was previously VP of Business Development with The BRM Group. He holds a B.Sc. in Electronics Engineering from the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel, and was a paratrooper in the Israeli army. Izhar serves on the board of directors of Snunit, a nonprofit organization, which focuses on integrating technology and the Internet into Israel’s elementary schools. Izhar is also a member of the Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools organization. He writes a weekly column at Globes. Izhar serves on the board of directors of LiveU, Efficient Finance, N-trig and Prime Sense.

Yaron Samid, Founder & CEO Novadea

Yaron Samid is an Internet entrepreneur and tech community leader. After founding several successful new media companies including Pando and DeskSite, Yaron created TechAviv and NYVideo.org, two of the world's largest organizations supporting new media entrepreneurs. TechAviv brings together Israel's leading hi-tech founders and investors monthly in Israel, Silicon Valley, New York and Boston. Yaron serves on the board of Aprigo, Pond5, InterMatch and the Tevel.org Angel Group.

Kfir Pravda, Pravda Media

Kfir Pravda is a marketer, content creator and blogger. His company, Pravda Media, provides services to companies and organizations in the field of media, content and marketing strategies. His blog, Pravda on Media and Technology, is read and quoted by VCs, content creators, and media executives across the globe. He is a known speaker and editor of international conferences in the fields of innovation, media, and technology. He is also an avid fan of crime films and whisky.

Tal Barnoach, Entrepreneur

Being involved in the last 15 years in the Hi-Tech industry .Some of past activities, Founder of S.E.A Multimedia ( went public in London 1996 ) , Chairman of Orca Interactive ( Acquired by France Telecom ) , Co-Founder & Chairman of Dotomi , Co-Founder & Chairman of BeInSync ( Acquired by Phoenix Technologies ) ,Co-Founder & Chairman of Sportingo ( Merged with Tixdaq ). In his recent activities - Seed Investor & Board member in Fixya & NuConomy , Chairman of VCON .

Stowe Boyd, Microsyntax.org

I am best known these days for my writing (and the thinking behind it, I hope) at /Message, hence the /Messengers. I am obsessed with social tools, and their impact on business, media, and society. I coined the term “social tools” in 1999, the same year I started blogging, and I haven’t looked back since. Writing and working with clients takes most of my time, but I also speak at various events, such as Reboot, Lift, Shift, Mesh, Enterprise 2.0, Office 2.0, Under The Radar, Next08, and Web 2.0 Expo, to name only a few. See my web site.

Marc Goldberg, Occam Capital

Based in Paris, Marc Goldberg is the managing partner of Occam Capital, with over 20 years of experience in the software industry in the U.S. and Europe. Golberg started Occam Capital in 2004 to focus on under-served Europe IP in the information technology industry, and to build a technology consolidation fund that would support the local innovation community and deliver superior return to its investors. Before Occam Capital, Goldberg was a general partner and CTO of RVC, manager of the Reuters Greenhouse Fund, the corporate VC arm of Reuters. RVC was instrumental in some of the most profitable European transactions with ID2 (sold to Sonera), MetaMerge (sold to IBM), Orchestream (LSE IPO), Fantastic Corporation (Neue Merk IPO), and Tradeum (sold to VerticalNet). The Greenhouse fund was invested in 82 companies and generated 16 IPOs and 27 trade sales. Goldberg has been an entrepreneur and senior executive in technology and product management in large and small technology companies, including Renaissance Software (sold to SunGard), Rational Software (sold to IBM for $2.1B), Thales-Syseca (Paris), KMPG-Nolan Norton (Palo Alto), and Reuters (London). Goldberg lives in Paris with his wife and three children.

Jeff Pulver, pulver.com

Jeffrey Pulver is the Chairman and Founder of pulver.com, and one of the true pioneers of the VoIP industry and a leader in the emerging TV on the Net industry. Leveraging well over a decade of hands-on experience in Internet/IP communications and innovation, Mr. Pulver is a globally renowned thought leader, author and entrepreneur. His blog is well read within the IP Communications Industry and in high-tech communities around the world. He is the publisher of The Pulver Report and VON Magazine and creator of the industry standard Voice on the Net (VON) events, where all sectors of IP communications come together to discuss, debate, and advance the industry. Additionally, Mr. Pulver is the founder of pulvermedia, FWD, the VON Coalition, Network2, Vivox and is the co-founder of Abbey Corps and VoIP provider, Vonage.

Yaron Adler, Co-Founder/CEO Incredimail

Yaron Adler founded IncrediMail in November 1999 and has served as the Chief Executive Officer for over 8 years building it from scratch into a successful high growth company, taking it public in the NASDAQ in 2006 and to a profitible company with over $20M of yearly revenues. In addition Yaron is involved (as investor, director and/or advisor) in several other Internet, mobile and content startups such as eToro, Traffilog, typeMock, InnerActive, Keepaboo, Market Guru, White Smoke, TriPlay, eSnips and Others. Recently Yaron founded, together with Oded Federbusch, the "We Group" who accompanies startups and entrepreneurs to success.

José A. del moral, Entrepreneur

José A. del moral is an entrepreneur, conference organizer and angel investor from Spain. He's also editing a couple of blogs on social networks and IT in general. Late in 1999 he was one of the founders of Ya.com, the second largest portal in Spain, later sold to Deutsche Telekom. He's also founded Alianzo, a social networking consultancy and Metroo, a local services recommendation system. He's invested in Agoranews, a videoblogging company based in Madrid, Negociame, a Digg-like business news filtering system and iBotanika, a social network for people who like plants. As a conference organizer, he organizes Startup 2.0, a european startups competition.

Avichay Nissenbaum, CEO & Co-founder of Yedda

Avichay Nissenbaum is the CEO & Co-founder of Yedda, an AOL company And AOL Israel Country Manager. As co-founder and CEO of Yedda, Inc. Avichay led the company to become a prominent player in the Internet social search space which led to the acquisition by AOL (A Time Warner company Nasdaq:TWX).Prior to Yedda Avichay co-founded SmarTeam (Acquired by Dassault Systemes , Nasdaq: DASTY), a market leader in the PLM domain (Product Lifecycle Management). With over 20 years of experience in the software industry, through leadership positions in management, sales, business development, marketing, and operations, Avichay serves as a board member for Winbuyer Ltd., ComSleep Ltd. And Incredimail (NASDAQ: MAIL) and advises and helps several startups and entrepreneurs. Avichay holds a B.Sc degree in Computer Science and a B.A in Economics.

Deborah Schultz, leader and innovator

Deborah Schultz is a thought leader and innovator on the impact and adoption of Internet technologies and the power of technology to connect society, culture and business. She speaks and consults on the cultural and economic impact of the Internet, and specifically where our social and technological networks overlap. She currently serves as Procter & Gamble’s Strategic Adviser for Social & Emerging Media and has also consulted with and advised Fortune 50 companies including Pepsi, General Mills, and GE, as well as numerous internet startups and VC firms. She is a regular keynote speaker at tech and business conferences. Previously, Deborah was the Marketing Director at Six Apart, ran her own marketing consultancy firm, was a management consultant at AnswerThink and spent five years at Citibank where she developed many of the global bank's first internet initiatives. One of her proudest accomplishments was launching the Downtown Info Center, a lower Manhattan community center & online hub to revitalize lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11th. Deborah is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University. The former Manhattanite is now a tireless road warrior and can be found in SF, NYC, or Tel Aviv. But wherever she is, she's always 'connected'.

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Entrepreneur

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten is a successful serial internet Entrepreneur, blogger and public speaker. He started, and sold, several Internet companies and is currently a shareholder in Wakoopa, TwitterCounter, Paydro and Twones. At The NexT Web holding Boris is responsible for The Next Web blog which is quickly turning into the most active and influential technology blog in Europe. Boris founded The Next Web Conference in 2006 and is currently preparing the 5th edition which will take place in March 2010. The Next Web Conference is a high quality Internet conference which takes place once a year in Amsterdam and attracts close to a thousand International Internet Entrepreneurs.

Ayelet Noff, Blonde 2.0, Founder and CEO

Ayelet founded Blonde 2.0 in 2006, back when almost no one knew what social media even meant. Blonde 2.0's mission then and now is to help brands understand how to use social media tools (social networks, the blogosphere and social software) effectively. Ayelet has over ten years of experience in the hi-tech industry. She was ICQ's Marketing Manager for four years and also held various executive marketing positions in different startups. She is also a member of AdHocnium, an ad-hoc agency made up of the top social media experts worldwide, which helps large-scale companies to communicate more effectively with their customers. Ayelet is a top blogger and currently writes for four different blogs: The Blonde 2.0 blog, The Next Web, Socialmedia.biz, and Adhocnium's blog. She holds an MBA degree from Tel Aviv University, and a BA in Politics from Brandeis University.