The Coolest Geeks are Ready to Set Camp in Panglao Island

Drum roll!! We are ecstatic to announce the first batch of speakers for this year’s Geeks on a Beach! More to come, but for now let’s make waves for these coolest geeks who are ready to set up camp in Panglao Island.

If you’ve been wanting to meet influencers and leaders like them, now is your chance to meet them up close.  Work hard. Play Hard.  Get ready and sign up today!

Because we don’t want you to miss this golden opportunity, we’re giving you 30% off on  your conference ticket valid until May 31. Register HERE!

David Brown is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Techstars. He is a serial entrepreneur who has founded three startups and been involved with two others. He is one of the original founders of Pinpoint Technologies, Inc. which is now part of ZOLL Medical Corporation and provides solutions to the emergency medical services market. He was President of the company from founding through over $50M per year in revenue and over 250 people.

David later co-founded Techstars along with David Cohen, Brad Feld, and Jared Polis. He has been an investor and advisor to Techstars since inception. In 2013, he joined Techstars in a more active role as Managing Partner.

David has a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. As a ski instructor in the past, David still enjoys hitting the slopes on a good powder day.

Marc Nager is the co-founder of Startup Weekend, former CEO of UP Global, and Community Officer of Techstars. Since 2009, Marc has focused on building startup communities around the world through experiential programming, primarily Startup Weekend which has reached over 300k individuals in over 130 countries to date. He and the community behind Startup Weekend helped create the world’s largest pre-accelerator, Startup Next as well as helped encourage access to startup activities in over 400 communities around the world with Startup Digest. Just this year, Marc and his team at UP Global were acquired by Techstars which completed the vision of providing stage appropriate resources for entrepreneurs across their entire journey, from idea to exit.

Chris McCann started and runs the community program at Greylock Partners, Inc, a top tier VC fund. Previously he was the founder of the media company Startup Digest (acquired in 2012).

Epi Ludvik Nekaj is the Founder and CEO of Crowdsourcing Week. In 2008, he created Ludvik + Partners – one of New York’s hottest boutique virtual ad agencies built on a 100% crowdsourcing model. Epi Ludvik is one of the pioneers in the crowdsourcing ad space, an industry expert and thought leader in entertainment advertising – including public relations, event production, experiential marketing, consumer advertising and digital marketing. Epi earned his BS in Advertising & Marketing degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and has been a serial entrepreneur since graduation. His varied and global experiences throughout his career have taken him across the US and Asia, where he honed his skills in advertising and media with high-profile clients and power brands.

Joseph K. Ziegler is the CEO, Rockstarz Asia. Joe started his life and education in Texas but began his IT career in Silicon Valley. In 1995 he worked at Netscape developing some of the first e-commerce applications during the early days of the Internet. His next venture took him to NetGravity and his second classic Internet IPO. After that, Joe enjoyed building several startups from the ground up in the role of the technical executive responsible for the company IP and managing engineering groups. His most recent thriving venture was Iris Data Services, which landed on the “Forbes 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the US” list, and was recently acquired by EPIQ Systems (NASDAQ: EPIQ), for $134M.

In 2006, Joe began using cloud services and virtualization to create the infrastructure for Iris Data Services as the Director of Technical Services. Later, he worked with several enterprises developed on the cloud, including building his own company, IndexMedia, that successfully exited in the Australian market. Today, he continues to work with startups providing technical expertise and angel investment support and was recently the Entrepreneur in Residence for the muru-D Singapore cohort #1.

Arnaud Bonzom is the Director of Corporate Innovation at 500 Startups. He is helping large corporations across the world to engage with startups.

Prior to joining 500 Startups in 2015, he has been an assistant director and Entrepreneur -in-Residence at INSEAD.

He has spent the last 7 years between large corporations, startups and venture capital.

Robert Cristobal is a seasoned brand strategist specializing in communications, creative storytelling & content marketing. Founder of a Singapore-based content strategy firm, Frame 316. Robert has produced content for Microsoft, Pfizer, Standard Chartered & Randstad employing a story-centric approach which focuses on human experience rather than product or service features.

He has extensive experience in content design for inbound marketing which includes conceptualizing, execution & distribution of intelligent content for lead generation and customer acquisition.

His storytelling skills have landed him international recognition such as placing second in the APEC Video Contest 2015 and semi-finalist for Our Good Story Asia 2014 and Our Better World Story of the Year 2015.

Philip McKay is the principal UX Designer of Citrix. He is currently designing and developing a wide variety of websites, online tools – and having a lot of fun doing it. CSS and Java Script have really brought Philip McKay back to several of his passions: interactive visualizations; clean apps that make sense; and prototypes to increase communications between design staff and developers.

Christina Laskowski is an advisor and management consultant to consumer and technology companies who seek her expertise in strategy execution, business development and market positioning. Her background includes 16 years as a boutique investment and M&A banker where she helped raise more than $2.0 billion serving more than 100 growth clients; and three years in equity research as a member of the founding branded consumer research team at Hambrecht & Quist in San Francisco.

In addition to working closely with clients, Christina serves as President of the Science & Technology Advisory Council (STAC) – Silicon Valley, a 501(c)3 focused on cultivating holistic entrepreneurship. In this role, Christina played a critical and leading role in the formation of a tech focused entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Philippines which has now led to a cross border knowledge transfer platform between the SF Bay Area and the Philippines. Her community work extends to local non-profit organizations (Global Filipino Network, Philippine American Writers & Artists) and academic institutions in the SF Bay Area where she serves as an active advisor. Her diverse professional background has led to invitations to participate in Consumer Tech, Asia and Emerging Markets focused conferences including Geeks on a Beach where she hosts the women in tech breakfast each year.

The Filipina Women’s Network presented Christina with the 100 Most Influential Filipinas in the US award — Pioneers category in 2011. In 2010, she received the Golden Heart award from the Philippine President.

So there you have it, our first batch of speakers with a wide array of expertise and experiences. Get to know them. Learn and grow from the insights and knowledge that they will be sharing at Geeks on a Beach. Register now!