Cloud by Example: Exploring the Business Case for Cloud Computing

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The promise of cloud computing is truly staggering – it offers virtually unlimited and on-demand scalable resources, operational efficiencies, and a radical business model that enables innovation and growth without the usual investments in infrastructure, personnel, and other fixed costs. But is the cloud actually delivering?

Join our panel of industry experts moderated by Tim Porter, General Partner at Madrona Venture Group:

Ingvar Petursson, Senior Vice President, Information Technology, Nintendo
Ashwin Muthuvenkataraman, Technical Product Manager, Expedia
JB Brown, Innovation Lab Program Manager, Nordstrom
Damon Danieli, Founder & CTO, Z2Live

When the benefits of cloud computing ultimately depend on navigating an immature marketplace filled with hype generated by nearly every technology provider, it may be challenging to distinguish exactly what technology solution lies beneath marketing keywords such as infrastructure virtualization, elastic computing platforms, and public, private, and hybrid clouds. How does any business find just the right provider and the right solution for its needs, while avoiding the very real pitfalls of cloud computing?

Our Cloud by Example MIT Enterprise Forum will explore the process of selecting, implementing, and managing a cloud computing solution from the perspective of four use cases:

Migrating enterprise applications
Enabling rapid development and fast go-to-market
Deploying mobile applications
Deploying social / gaming applications

What you can expect

You’ll hear from a panel of experienced cloud users and benefit from the lessons they’ve learned in implementing cloud-based solutions.
Panelists will discuss the business and product needs that led them to adopt cloud computing and how they evaluated various cloud providers to find those best suited to their requirements.
The panel will provide insight into the challenges and opportunities involved in implementing a cloud-based solution.

MODERATOR

Tim Porter is a Partner at Madrona Venture Group, a venture capital firm with over $670 million under management, which invests in early-stage technology companies in the Pacific Northwest. Tim is focused on investments in the software, infrastructure, and mobile sectors. He has been particularly interested in the areas of SaaS, cloud computing, and next generation mobile platforms. Tim joined Madrona in 2006. He currently serves on the boards of Appature, Corensic, Mobilisafe, and App Fog, and is a board observer for Apptio, ExtraHop Networks, Impinj, Singlepoint, Skytap, Smartsheet, and Z2Live. Tim is also a member of the three-person Investment Committee for the Alliance of Angels Seed Fund. Prior to joining Madrona, Tim was a key member of Corporate Development at Microsoft, where he shared responsibilities for sourcing, structuring, and negotiating Microsoft’s acquisitions, strategic investments, and joint ventures. At Microsoft, Tim focused on enterprise software, security, and wireless and closed 14 transactions for over $850 million. Notable transactions included acquisitions of Softricity, FrontBridge Technologies, and ProClarity. Earlier, Tim worked for broadband satellite start-up Teledesic, spending his last year there also working for Craig McCaw’s Eagle River Investments. Tim received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

PANELISTS

Damon Danieli, Founder and CTO, Z2Live, Inc. Damon Danieli co-founded Z2Live, Inc. in 2009 and serves as its Chief Technology Officer. Prior to founding Zero260, Mr. Danieli spent 14 years at Microsoft in a variety of development and innovation management roles. During his Microsoft career, he served as Technical Lead of the Xbox Entertainment Network inside Microsoft Games Studios and as a Lead Program Manager for Xbox Live, where he designed many of the marquee features of the Xbox Live service including Voice Chat, Voice Commands, Friends, Invitations, Presence and Notifications. Also as part of the Xbox team, he served as program manager for Security, Authentication, Authorization, NAT Traversal, Matchmaking and Networking. Prior to joining the Xbox team, Mr. Danieli served as Development Lead for the SideWinder line of Gaming Devices and the ActiMates Line of Characters (including Microsoft's Interactive Barney toy). His last position at Microsoft was a Senior Developer in the Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator division. As such, he was part of a small, agile team that combined technology from Microsoft's research division with production techniques from their product groups. Mr. Danieli's international experiences includes working as a database programmer at Solidarity's Bank Informacji Gospodarczej (Economic Information Bank) where he created a database for internal Polish companies seeking foreign capital and assistance. Mr. Danieli's education accomplishments include earning a Bachelor of Sciences in Electrical Engineering in 1996 and a Masters in Computer Science in 1999, both from the University of Washington.

Ingvar Petursson, Senior Vice President, Information Technology, Nintendo. Ingvar Petursson has been SVP IT at Nintendo Of America, Inc. since July of 2010. Mr. Petursson oversees all aspects of NOA's Information Technology functions, including enterprise applications development, enterprise infrastructure and risk management. Previously, he has served as CIO for Expedia and AT&T Wireless, and CTO at Corbis and Regence. He is the Executive Founder of AGORA, a professional organization dedicated to the evolving issues surrounding information security, and CHITA, the Community Health Information Technology Alliance. Mr. Petursson received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and his M.B.A. from University of California at Los Angeles.

Ashwin Muthuvenkataraman, Product Manager, Expedia. Ashwin Muthuvenkataraman is a Technical Product Manager working in Expedia managing products to optimize search experience and traveler reviews across Expedia sites. He has extensive experience managing products, key technology program initiatives, and managing technology teams in service and eCommerce companies including Microsoft, Travelocity, Remedy. He has a Master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Portland State University, Portland, OR.

JB Brown, Innovation Lab Program Manager, Nordstrom. JB Leads the Nordstrom Innovation Lab; a new and growing team. The lab acts like a Lean Startup inside of a large company: moving through ideas quickly, using whichever technologies make sense. It also walks the agile walk: the lab is a collaborative workspace with stickies and note cards everywhere, and follows agile engineering practices like pairing and test-driven development. On the customer-facing side, the Lab uses ideas from both lean manufacturing and lean startup and tests its experiments with customers using human-centered design strategies and tactics.

For sponsorship and partnership opportunities: Please contact Fortunato Vega at fortunato911@gmail.com.

Event schedule

5:00 - 6:15 pm – Networking / cash bar / food buffet

6:15 - 8:00 pm – Panel discussion
8:00 - 8:15 pm – Q&A

Parking information

Although complimentary parking is available outside the venue, it is limited for the number of guests we are expecting for this event. Please consider arriving early, carpooling, or taking the bus (lines # 25, 43, 48, 167 and 545). Below are some additional parking options:

Neighborhood parking unrestricted after 6:00 pm (with a two-hour limit before that)
UW’s parking lots
Mountlake neighborhood parking zones

Please note that our early bird rate expires 10 days before event date. Online registration automatically closes at 5:00 pm on November 15^th. Unless the event is already sold out, walk-ins are welcome on event night ($60 at the door).