SCALE Steering Committee 2020
Ilkay Altintas
Chief Data Science Officer at San Diego Supercomputer Center
Dr. Ilkay Altintas is the Chief Data Science Officer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), UC San Diego, where she is also the Founder and Director for the Workflows for Data Science Center of Excellence. Her passion is leading collaborative multi-disciplinary computational data science teams. Her research objective is delivering impactful results through making collaborative computational data science work more reusable, programmable, scalable and reproducible. Her work has been applied to many scientific and societal domains including bioinformatics, geoinformatics, high-energy physics, multi-scale biomedical science, smart cities, and smart manufacturing.
Jason Anderson
President and CEO at Cleantech San Diego
Jason is President and CEO of Cleantech San Diego, a nonprofit member organization that positions the greater San Diego region as a global leader in the cleantech economy. Cleantech San Diego's membership includes more than 100 local businesses, universities, governments, and nonprofits committed to advancing sustainable solutions for the benefit of the economy and the environment. As President and CEO, Jason manages the overall organization and leads several initiatives critical to the mission of the organization, including Smart Cities San Diego, advocacy efforts, and economic development programs.
Rick Azer
Leads the convergence of infrastructure, communications, and data analytics to extend the value proposition of the Internet of Everything across a wide array of clients and industries. Identifies new trends, establishes solution architecture, supports ecosystem development and system integration to successfully bring programs to market. Focus areas include smart city, transportation, and distributed infrastructure.
Neal Bloom
Ecosystem & Company Builder
Neal Bloom is a serial entrepreneur, startup ecosystem organizer, and angel investor. Neal is passionate about building a strong San Diego business community, especially in tech-enabled businesses. He has a background of building companies in edtech, HR tech, marketplaces, and govtech. He helped San Diego Startup Week build itself into a non-profit that helps startups launch and entrepreneurs enrich themselves and their employees to build a great business. He currently sits as chairman of Startup San Diego, is on the board of San Diego Venture Group, and runs the popular local blog Fresh Brewed Tec.
Erik Caldwell
Deputy Chief Operating Officer (DCOO) at City of San Diego
As Deputy Chief Operating Officer (DCOO) for Smart and Sustainable Communities, Mr. Caldwell oversees the day-to-day City operations of the Smart and Sustainable Communities Branch which includes the Development Services, Economic Development, Planning, and Sustainability departments. The Branch is charged with providing services that enrich San Diego's diverse communities, engage its citizens, and to improve service delivery by leveraging Smart Cities technologies.
Jacques Edouard Chirazi
Sustainability Expert and Policy Adviser: I enable and support the development of innovative technologies and companies
Certified Biomimicry Professional, has managed the City of San Diego's Clean Tech Initiative since 2007. His focus is to create economic growth while fostering sustainability. One emerging initiative is to bridge clean technology with biomimicry. He develops and supports a clean technology cluster in San Diego. As a critical thinker analyzing complex programs and policies, he leverages his strong communication skills while collaborating across a diverse range of private, public, and non-profit sector groups. With a passion for learning about the natural world and understanding how nature could transform the corporate environment, his long term vision is to create new business models and financial instruments to accelerate the commercialization of biomimetic solutions. Jacques's innovative thinking allows him to create the conditions needed for this transformation.
Brad Chisum
CEO at Launch Factory
Brad Chisum is the CEO of Launch Factory, an entity created to build more intelligent startup companies. He is the former CEO and co-founder of Lumedyne Technologies a MEMS Inertial Sensor company acquired by Google. While at Google, Chisum served as the Product Manager for the technology acquired from Lumedyne. Prior to Lumedyne, Chisum has held engineering and management positions at the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Defense Systems Command (SPAWAR), and with semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics.Chisum holds four patents and three degrees: an MBA from San Diego State University, a B.S. Electrical Engineering and B.S. Mathematics from Southern Methodist University.
Natasha Collura
Director, Revenue Generation and Partnership Development at San Diego County Regional Airport Authority
Marketing and sales emphasis; Trained in partnership marketing; National and regional consumer promotions; Sales and advertising; Excellent people and product manager; Strong team builder; Strong relationship management, problem solving and negotiation abilities; Strategic planning and implementation.
Alex Denoble
Executive Director, Lavin Entrepreneurship Center San Diego State University
Alex F. DeNoble is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Executive Director of the SDSU Lavin Entrepreneurship Center. He served as the 2015 President of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and currently on the board of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB). His areas of research and teaching expertise include entrepreneurship, corporate innovation and technology commercialization. He has published in such journals as IEEE Transactions on Management, the Journal of Business Venturing and the Journal of Technology Transfer. He has worked with numerous startups and has consulted with organizations such as Qualcomm, SDGE, and Siemens.
Christine Pafford Gambino, MA, PMP
Chief Data Officer at County of San Diego
Greg Horowitt
Innovation Ecosystem Architect, Venture Capitalist, Serial Entrepreneur, Author, and Global Innovation Policy Advise
Venture Capitalist, Innovation Ecosystem Architect, author, serial entrepreneur, public speaker and adviser to international and domestic organizations and governments. Unique expertise at the intersection of high impact startup investment + mentorship, innovation based economic development, capital formation, policy, strategy, technology transfer and commercialization. Co-founder of a leading innovation think tank, and prior experience as senior executive for Fortune 500 company. Extensive for-profit and not-for-profit board experience.
David Horowitz
Government Account Manager at Cox Business
Xavier Leonard
Civic Engagement and Open Data Consultant
Experienced in civic technology development, placemaking, startups, social entrepreneurship, community engagement, community organizing, collaborative design, research, Open Data, Open Source software/hardware, project management, web development, nonprofit organization, grant writing, fundraising, team leadership and staff development.
Michelle Morris
Associate Director, Design Lab
Innovation and Design Strategist | Change Catalyst | Coach & Facilitator | Global Leadership & Negotiation
Bill Pugh
Smart Connections Consulting LLC
Mr. Pugh has over 25 years of experience in wired/wireless strategies, platform development and deployment of networking technologies for several private and public companies. Most recently over the past 5 years, working with cities on strategies for executing Smart City initiatives around Street lights, Smart Parking, Intelligent Traffic and Security.
Katie Rast
Director, Community Impact at The San Diego Foundation
Katie manages the Community Impact Team, overseeing The Foundation's programs as well as maximize the impact of philanthropic investments made by donors and Foundation discretionary funds. Prior to joining The Foundation, she served as Executive Director for Fab Lab, where she worked with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and National Science Foundation to establish the first program of its kind in the region. Additionally, Rast has served as Senior Strategy Advisor for UCSD Design Lab; Program Lead for LRNG, a MacArthur Foundation-backed initiative; Director of Marketing for Cal Coast; and Manager for the General Electric Brilliant Career Lab pilot initiative on behalf of Fab Foundation, GE Foundation and Boston Public Schools.Katie has received awards and recognition by MIT, USAID and WorldBank, San Diego Downtown Partnership, Civic San Diego, and the United Nations. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Digital Media & Society from Goddard College.
Glenn Ricart
Founder and CTO US Ignite
Technologist, businessman, CTO, computer networking and security specialist, and academic / educator. Dr. Ricart has worked at the intersection of business, policy, and technology for more than 30 years. Among other accomplishments, he started what might be viewed as the first Internet Service Provider (ISP), has founded or co-founded 3 successful startups, served as EVP and CTO of Novell, and been DARPA's liaison to the Clinton White House. Areas of computer techology interest include: networking, security, wireless, and distributed algorithms. Dr. Ricart's most requested talks are on the future of technology and the application of that future to business or policy.
Brad Voytek
Associate Professor at University of California San Diego
Bradley Voytek is an associate professor in the Department of Cognitive Science, the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, and the Neurosciences Graduate Program at UC San Diego. He is also an Alfred P. Sloan Neuroscience Research Fellow and National Academies Kavli Fellow, as well as a founding faculty member of the UC San Diego undergraduate Data Science major and the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute. He was formerly the first Data Scientist at Uber. His lab studies the computational role that neural oscillations play in coordinating information transfer in the brain. His research program combines large-scale data mining and machine learning techniques with hypothesis-driven experimental research. He is also known for his zombie brain "research" with his friend and fellow neuroscientist Timothy Verstynen, with whom he has published the book Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, by Princeton University Press.