David Weinstein is a Co-Founder at HomeKeepr, a home maintenance reminder/vendor directory app. In addition to HomeKeepr, Mr. Weinstein is an investor and/or consultant in several industries including commercial real estate, web start-ups, and alternative energy. His CRE experience is concentrated in multi-family and hotels on the east coast. Alternative energy project including LNG for transportation and distributed GTL. David Weinstein received his undergraduate degree and MBA from Cornell University.
Saro Cutri is co-founder of HomeKeepr. Cutri was most recently a Managing Director and Co-Head of UBS\'s Structured Products proprietary trading group, overseeing a $50+ billion dollar portfolio of distressed legacy positions focused primarily in non-agency residential and commercial mortgage backed securities. Prior to that, he ran UBS\'s residential credit trading effort for their broker/dealer operation focused primarily on Prime and Alt-A residential mortgage collateral types. Saro Cutri earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University\'s College of Engineering.
Charlie Mulligan is the founder and CEO of GiveGab.com, the social network for volunteers.
Gamal J. Palmer, President of Global Eye, is a native of Philadelphia, earned dual BA degrees in Liberal Arts and Theater Arts from the University of Miami. While in Miami, Palmer launched his first theater production company where he produced and directed avant-garde theater works. While an MFA acting candidate at Yale University, Palmer co-produced an undergraduate abroad program, Arts in Action: Theater and Public Health in Swaziland and South Africa. While at Yale, he augmented his creative and producing background by studying arts organizations and leadership at the Schools of Theater and Management. He then designed an interdisciplinary graduate program for the Yale Schools of Drama and Divinity entitled, The Quest for Social Justice through Music, Theater and Religion, which takes place in Tanzania, East Africa. With the support of the World Performance Project, Palmer wrote and co-produced a one-man show, Mosaic. Inspired by his experiences abroad, Mosaic is based on interviews held with men of color in North America and South Africa. He is based in Los Angeles where he serves as the President and Founder of Global Eye Entertainment.
Adam Hanina is CEO and co-founder of AiCure. He has been a strategist in healthcare software delivery for over fifteen years and holds over a dozen patents in his name. Prior to AiCure, he helped further develop Cerner Corporation\'s European strategy and was a Visiting Fellow of eHealth at Imperial College in London, UK. Mr. Hanina has spoken extensively on the topic of healthcare innovation and has acted as a subject-matter expert on medication adherence technologies for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is currently a principal investigator for multiple NIH innovation grants. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and an undergraduate degree from Brown University.
Michael Polk joined Newell Rubbermaid as President and Chief Executive Officer in July 2011. Previously, Mike was President of Global Foods, Home and Personal Care at Unilever, where he was responsible for the development, innovation and marketing of Unilever\'s entire 64 billion dollar portfolio of categories and brands. During eight years at Unilever, he is credited with transforming the company’s business in the Americas, sharpening Unilever’s global portfolio strategy, and creating a more competitive, faster-growing, innovation-driven organization. He was a member of the Unilever Executive Board from 2007-2011. Earlier, Mike spent 16 years at Kraft Foods serving as President, Asia Pacific Region, Kraft Foods International and President, Nabisco Biscuit & Snacks, Kraft Foods North America. In both positions, he served on Kraft’s Management Committee. Prior to Kraft, Mike spent three years at Procter & Gamble working in manufacturing and research & development in the Paper Products Division. He has a B.S. in operations research and industrial engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Jay Walker is one of America's best-known inventors and entrepreneurs and is one of a dozen or so living inventors worldwide to hold 200 patents in multiple fields.
Walker, and a team at Walker Digital, LLC, his invention laboratory, created the central ideas behind priceline.com, the groundbreaking "name-your-own-price" company for airline tickets and hotel rooms.
Walker has also created a number of other successful businesses, including New Sub Services (now named Synapse) a company he co-founded and that revolutionized the magazine subscription industry and was recently sold to AOL Time Warner for $600 million. Walker also co-founded Target Communications, a conference and publishing company which was sold to Primedia in 2000.
Mr. Walker is currently chairman of Walker Digital, LLC, a Stamford, Conn.-based laboratory that invents entirely new ways for businesses to operate and serve consumers. Walker Digital is not a consultancy, but a privately funded active research laboratory that use long-term interdisciplinary invention teams to create solutions in the same manner and style as the original Edison laboratory. Successful inventions are licensed to industry or used as the core intellectual property of innovative startups for which the laboratory provides both personnel and funding. To date, Walker Digital has invented over 600 proprietary business methods addressing dozens of significant business problems in a wide range of industries such as travel, data security, retail, automotive, restaurants, groceries, financial services, gaming and entertainment.
Walker's inventions and innovations have been widely recognized. He has twice been recognized by the editors of TIME magazine as one of the 50 most influential business leaders in the digital age. Business Week selected Jay as one of its 25 Internet pioneers most responsible for "changing the competitive landscape of almost every industry in the world." Newsweek named him as one of three executives at the forefront of the Internet commerce revolution.
Walker and his wife have two children and live in Connecticut. He holds a B.S. degree in Industrial Relations from Cornell University.
Robert Waldman is Managing Director & Head of Corporate Bond Research at Citigroup. He has worked at Citigroup for the past 20 years. Prior to that role, he worked at Standard & Poor's. He also worked in criminal law while serving in the Marine Corps.
Robert Waldman is a graduate of CUNY City College of New York. He also holds a law degree.
Rajiv Gupta is Chairman, President and CEO of Rohm and Haas, which specializes in making cutting-edge specialty chemicals that are used in products as diverse as paint and computers. During this lecture, he shares thoughts on the importance of engineering to industry and the world.
Rajiv Gupta received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and received his Masters in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.