UIX GLOBAL - Key Persons
Aaron works at the nexus between civil society and technology, building tools that empower communities by bringing innovation to the street. He conceived of the OWL virtual reality kiosk after spending countless hours reporting on public meetings in Palo Alto and witnessing the utter dysfunction of that antiquated process. Aaron founded Owlized to provide tactical urban solutions which enable communities to visualize design alternatives in situ and respond to survey questions from the street, without deviating from their busy lives. Today the OWL and other innovative design solutions at Owlized are driving civic engagement, resiliency, place-making, data visualization and marketing initiatives for cities, developers, learning institutions and ad agencies.
Aaron is also an award-winning reporter whose work has appeared on NPR, CNN, PBS, Salon, and other major outlets. He was founding editor of Palo Alto Patch (AOL), and has received broad recognition for his reporting across a variety of mediums, including a George Polk Award for a story on the impacts of sea level rise on the residents of Kiribati.
Aaron lives in San Francisco and is a 16-year Burning Man veteran, flies a paraglider, and could eat Mexican food four meals a day.
Job Titles:
- Strategic Advisor, Center for Carbon Removal
Amanda Joy Ravenhill brings her passion and expertise in environmental and social justice to the organization's solution-based approach to addressing climate change. Prior to Project Drawdown, Amanda was a Professor of Sustainable Business at Presidio Graduate School, where she taught sustainability, systems thinking, and environmental and social justice to MBA and MPA candidates. Previously, she co-founded The Hero Hatchery, a nationally recognized fellowship for climate activists, served as the Head of Business Partnerships at 350.org, served as the Executive Director of Ananay, a fair trade organization in Bolivia, and held an Americorp Fellowship. Amanda is an established expert and speaker in the fields of Systems Thinking, Climate Change, Regenerative Design, and Biochar. She received an M.B.A. in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School, and received a B.A. in International Development and Social Change from Clark University.
Job Titles:
- Founder & Chief Visionary Officer, Illuminate the Arts
Ben Davis is the visionary behind The Bay Lights, asking in September 2010, "What if the Bay Bridge were a canvas of light?" Two-and-a-half years later, after teaming with internationally renown artist Leo Villareal, a vast and passionate community had come together to fully permit, design, install, fund and celebrate a historic, transformative moment-the March 5, 2013, grand lighting of the world's largest LED light sculpture.
For more than a quarter-century, Ben has led communications on civic mega projects and matters of public safety, public health, public transit, the environment, urban revitalization and public art. He cut his teeth working as the manager of public information on the $4B Boston Harbor Cleanup project.
Upon moving to San Francisco in 1994, Ben founded the creative agency Words Pictures Ideas with the mantra of "Do Good. Have Fun. Learn." A recipient of two international Webby Awards for best website in government, Ben has helped name, brand and communicate about infrastructure projects totaling more than $15B in civic investment, including developing the names and visual identities of The Bay Bridge Seismic Safety Projects, Transbay Transit Center and Presidio Parkway.
He has edited and published Everything Indicates: Bay Bridge Poems & Portraits, He is the artist behind Pi In The Sky, a featured work of the 2012 ZERO1 Art & Technology International Biennial and SXSW 2014.
Job Titles:
- Training Director, Zero Net Energy Center
Byron Benton is a 25- -year veteran electrician and electrical training professional with specialized expertise in energy conservation and renewable energy. As Training Director for the Alameda County Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee (JATC) he oversees all aspects of the program and training center the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 595 (IBEW) and the Northern California Chapter, NECA (NECA). For the past two years, Mr. Benton has overseen the design and construction of the IBEW and NECA's innovative new training facility, the "Zero Net Energy Center" (ZNE Center) in San Leandro, CA. The first retrofit of an existing commercial building that meets the U.S. Department of Energy standards for a "zero net energy," the ZNE Center also exceeds the State of California's 2030 energy efficiency effort meeting its zero net goal an impressive 17 years in advance. The ZNE Center also exceeds the energy conservation goals of the Obama administration's Better Buildings Challenge. The building is scheduled for completion in May 2013. Mr. Benton and his team accomplished their goals for the project by utilizing new technologies and advanced building designs and construction methods. The ZNE Center achieves a dramatic and unprecedented 75% reduction in energy use when compared to similar existing commercial buildings in the country. This energy savings lowers the ZNE Center's carbon footprint by 175 tons of CO2 per year, equal to the carbon emitted by 30 passenger vehicles annually as well as a savings of 500 barrels of oil each year. Before joining the JATC in 2002, Mr. Benton worked as General Foreman for Cupertino Electric, one of the country's largest electrical contracting companies. He is a graduate of the IBEW- -NECA electrical apprenticeship, where he was recognized as "Apprentice of the Year." Mr. Benton is also a graduate of the IBEW- -NECA Master Instructor program held at the University of Tennessee. He currently sits on three IBEW- -NECA National Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (NJATC) groups: Education Committee, Building Automation Sub- -Committee Chair; Interview Advisory Committee; and the National Training Institute Advisory Committee. Mr. Benton is nearing completion on his BA degree in Human Development at California State University East Bay.
Job Titles:
- Sustainability Manager, City of Oakland
Daniel Hamilton has been passionately cleaning and greening local governments since 1997. He currently serves as Sustainability Program Manager for the City of Oakland. He has previously served as local and regional government staff in sustainability in California, as well as in consulting in multiple states.
Job Titles:
- COO, ZipPower
- Founder and Chairman of Evolution7 Labs
David Cohen is internationally renowned for his pioneering work on SmartGrid software platforms. In 2012, David was named as one of the Top 100 Movers and Shakers in the SmartGrid by Greentech Media.
David was the founder and CEO of Infotility where he pioneered "the Grid Edge" and unlocked a multi-billion dollar SmartGrid market. At Infotility, David developed the industries first automated demand response platform which launched Open-ADRTM, the global standard for demand response.
David also pioneered the GridAgents™ platform deployed at Con Edison's 3G-System-of-the-Future and utilities globally to manage Microgrids. As founder and COO of Pacific Controls Smart Grid Services, he launched GalaxyTM the industry's first Smart City managed services software platform.
David was an early member of Silicon Energy (NASDAQ: ITRI) where he pioneered the development and market launch of the Distributed Energy Manager™ product which was used in the first Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and the first Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) at utilities globally.
David is also the founder and Chairman of Evolution7 Labs which is developing the PowerStation GatewayTM to enable and integrate solar, EV and other renewable-based MicroGrids. David recently served as Chief Strategy Officer for the Car Charging Group where he assisted in the M&A of the Blink NetworkTM which be-came the largest electric vehicle charging services company in the world. David is founding Member Emeritus of the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC) which was instrumental in launching the vision for the SmartGrid industry.
Job Titles:
- Chief Innovation Officer
- Chief Innovation Officer, City of San Leandro
Ms. Acosta is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, with 12 years as the banking professional in San Francisco, 12 years as a City of Oakland Economic Development professional focused in International Trade and the Innovative Technology sectors, and 1.5 years as an entrepreneur and business development consultant. She became the East Bay and San Leandro's first Chief Innovation Officer in February 2013, where she now lives with her artist/entrepreneur husband, Gary Branchaud.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of Type
- Co - Founder, Type a Machines
Espen Sivertsen is Co-Founder of Type A Machines, builders of the award winning Series 1 desktop 3D printer. Espen has previously served as Team Leader with the KaosPilots, a Scandinavian school of entrepreneurship described by Fast Company as the "new curriculum for managing change". Prior to this, Espen worked as Head of Demolab at iLab, an international knowledge center for new technologies and trends. When not at work, Espen can be found digging planter holes in the garden under his wife's ardent supervision, or playing frisbee golf in Golden Gate park (using 3D printed frisbees of course).
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder / Convenor
- Co - Founder at Meeting of the Minds
- Consultant at Cisco
Gordon Feller is Co-Founder at Meeting of the Minds, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization first launched as a project of the World Bank in the early 1990s. He's worked with emerging technologies for more than three decades, with a focus on on projects that harness the power of data (whether in the cloud, pulled via mobile networks from IoT-enabled end-points, or other advanced technologies) - all with the aim of solving complex problems.
His special expertise is building tech ecosystems, alliances, and strategic partnerships.
Gordon is especially interested in how new technologies can be deployed to build sustainable economies.
Over the years, Gordon's clients have included many technology leaders, such as IBM, Apple, International Electrotechnical Commission, Chevron, Bechtel, The World Bank, United Nations, German national government, Canadian national government, Reuters, Metropolis, among others. Gordon has published hundreds of articles including in CFO Magazine, Urban Land, TIME Magazine, and Financial Times.
Gordon is a consultant at Cisco and Co-founder/Convenor of Meeting of the Minds, an annual leadership summit organized since 2007 by Urban Age Institute (UAI). Feller was for more than five years Director at Cisco Systems headquarters in Silicon Valley. He served in an executive capacity within the company's programs focused on cities.
Job Titles:
- Managing Associate, Cofounder
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder & Director T2 Venture Capital
- Co - Founder of Global CONNECT
Mr. Horowitt is also the co-founder of Global CONNECT, a think tank based at the University of California, San Diego, focused on the development and growth of innovation clusters worldwide. Under his leadership, Global CONNECT has grown to encompass one of the world's largest networks of innovation hubs including more than 40 programs in 20 countries, all focused on accelerating global technology commercialization, and the Global CONNECT Summit, the annual gathering of best practice innovation organizations from around the world. In addition, he is the principal architect of several key innovative business management, leadership development, and entrepreneurship mentorship programs still in use today around the world, including Global Bridge and the Rainforest Architects Program. Mr. Horowitt's many media references include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, WIRED, Forbes, Fortune, New Scientist, and Entrepreneur Magazine.
Job Titles:
- Director of Civic Innovation Partners
Jeremy M. Goldberg is director of Civic Innovation Partnerships in the San Francisco Mayor's Office of Civic Innovation, where he leads Startup in Residence, a 16-week program that partners government departments with startups to develop products and services in San Francisco and three partner cities. He also leads Civic Bridge, which recruits private-sector teams to volunteer their time to work on critical public-sector issues with city staff and departments. Previously he was deputy chief of staff for civic innovation in the San Jose, Calif., mayor's office.
Goldberg has worked as a nonprofit executive, strategic consultant and public-private partnership adviser on projects in the United States and internationally. In 2003, he founded the Global Youth Partnership for Africa, which supported community development through sports and microfinance projects in post-conflict regions of East Africa. He earned a B.A. in government from the University of Texas at Austin and a master's degree in public affairs from the University of San Francisco.
Job Titles:
- Director Customer Innovation & Academia, OSISoft
- Director of Customer
John Matranga is the Director of Customer Innovation and Academia at OSIsoft. Responsible for the global STEM education program at OSIsoft, John enables academic institutions to leverage the PI System software and OSIsoft resources for education and research use. John has extensive expertise in technology vision, adoption, and services. Focused on sensor-based data for the past 30 years, his work has spanned the areas of software architecture, design, development and delivery for commercial software offerings in the areas now considered to be Cyber-Physical Systems or Industrial Internet of Things and Big Data. John lives in the San Francisco bay area with his wife and three children. OSIsoft is a 35-year-old company that employees over 1,200 employees worldwide. Our flagship product, the PI System, enables business to capture and leverage sensor-based data across the enterprise to improve efficiency, sustainability, quality, and safety. Investing in STEM education and research is OSIsoft's way of giving back for the great work universities have been doing for decades along with paying forward to students and to our customers. The academic program provides software and support for activities for industry-directed research in universities and K-12 STEM fundamental education.
Job Titles:
- Australian - American Environmental Engineer, Designer, and Computer Programmer
- Founder, Hello World Labs
- Media Spokesperson
Katie Patrick is an Australian-American environmental engineer, designer, and computer programmer. Her company, Hello World Labs creates data-driven, gamification and behavior-change solutions to the world's biggest problems. She is the creator of the behavior change game and Youtube channel Detrashed, the author of Detrash Your Life in 90 Days - The Art of Zero Waste Living and the creator of Zerowastify an app designed to better measure municipal solid waste.
Katie has been a media spokesperson on environmental issues and has been featured regularly on TV, radio and in print publications including VogueAustralia. She was CEO of the VC-funded green-lifestyle magazine Green Pages Australia and was appointed environmental brand ambassador by the Ogilvy Earth advertising agency for Volkswagen, Lipton Tea and Wolfblass Wines. She has served on the board of Australia's national eco-label, Good Environmental Choice Australia, and won the CosmopolitanWoman of the Year Award for entrepreneurship. After graduating from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology with a B.Eng in Environmental Engineering, she worked as an environmental design engineer for building engineers Lincoln Scott in Sydney on some of the world's first platinum-LEED-certified commercial buildings.
Katie lives in San Francisco with her 15-month-old daughter Anastasia.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Social Entrepreneur and Recognized Expert
- Vice President of the International Women 's Think Tank
Kimberly King is a social entrepreneur and recognized expert in the fields of public-private-partnerships and sustainable innovation eco systems. Her passion is working at the intersection of business strategy and social impact, creating ground-breaking marketing and financial models generating more than $4B dollars in revenue to date.
Kimberly is an international speaker, media producer and featured co-author in "The Power of Team". She has worked and traveled to nearly 70 countries and is an honored recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Global Humanitarian Award.
Marco Cochrane was born to American artists in Venice, Italy in 1962 and raised in Northern California in the midst of the political and cultural movement of those times. As a result, Marco learned respect for oneness, balance and the imperative to make the world a better place. In particular, he identified with the female struggle with oppression and saw feminine energy and power as critical to the world's balance. In his 20s, on a dare, he explored sculpting and discovered both his ability to capture human emotion and energy and the power of art to amplify.
Self-taught, for more than 20 years Marco sculpted in clay and cast in bronze, primarily women who chose their own poses…their own expressions. Then in 2007 he attended the Burning Man Festival and was inspired to take his art and his message in a new direction, he just did not yet know how. In 2009 he returned, and it was then he realized how he could enlarge his sculptures to monumental proportions while maintaining their integrity, thus magnifying their impact.
For The Bliss Project Marco chose three ¾ lifesize sculptures of model Deja Solis. Bliss Dance appeared at the Festival in 2010, Truth is Beauty in 2013 and R-Evolution in 2015. It takes two years, multiple collaborators from different disciplines, dozens of volunteers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to bring one of these sculptures to fruition. They are true community/ collaborative projects from beginning to end.
Marco believes that the time we have to solve the problems that threaten our existence on this planet is running out, and that the key to finding real lasting solutions is bringing feminine energy into balance with male energy: a global shift, already underway.
Job Titles:
- Principal of Distributed Energy Planning, PG & E
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Principal
- Founder and Director of MBA Polymers
Mike has over 25 years of experience in growing a CleanTech company from concept to garage to pilot to multinational operations, raising over $140 million of equity and over $7 million of research projects and grants. He has extensive experience in managing a wide variety of complex and extensive relationships: shareholders, employees, government agencies, NGOs, board of directors, customers, suppliers and service providers.
Mike is founder and director of MBA Polymers, the world leading recycler of plastics from complex waste streams such as end-of-life durable goods (electronics, computers, appliances, automobiles, etc.). Technology leader, curator of the Company Brand and Vision, CleanTech entrepreneur, international relations and communications.
Job Titles:
- Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Commercialization at UC San Diego in June 2015
- Associate Vice Chancellor, Innovation & Technology, UCSD
Working with the Vice Chancellor for Research, Dr. Roben is transforming the functions provided by the Technology Transfer Office, Industry Research Alliances, and Industry Contracting into an integrated organization to include patenting, strategic corporate research partnering and industry contracts. He oversees the Office of Innovation and Commercialization, which will establish a campus-wide innovation platform to build a systemic and sustainable innovation culture, create a vibrant regional ecosystem, and accelerate the commercialization of UC San Diego inventions.
Previously he was Senior Director of Office Technology Development at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, working with multiple academic institutes to develop strategic processes to drive innovation alliances, and help translate their research programs into products for patients and society. He guided the formation of multiple new start-up companies and was responsible for the negotiation of a broad spectrum of technology licenses to industry.
As a key member of Ireland's Innovation Taskforce (2009 to present), he co-authored a national economic-development plan for Ireland, among other achievements.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biotechnology, as well as his Ph.D., at Dublin City University in Ireland, and studied as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Greg Silverman at UC San Diego.
Job Titles:
- Mayor, City of San Leandro
Pauline Cutter has a strong vision for San Leandro + a city whose safe neighborhoods, strong schools and vibrant quality of life for all make San Leandro the best city in the Bay Area. For the past four years, Councilmember Cutter has worked hard to renew interest and attract investment in San Leandro. Great gains have been made with the public private partnership of the high-speed fiber optic network, Lit San Leandro. This innovative project has succeeded in attracting advanced manufacturing and high-tech companies, bringing well-paying jobs to San Leandro. Pauline understands the importance of San Leandro welcoming innovative ideas and new business. She knows we need to create job opportunities and business hubs so the children who grew up in San Leandro want to remain in the community to raise their familiesPauline Cutter has a strong vision for San Leandro and a city whose safe neighborhoods, strong schools and vibrant quality of life for all make San Leandro the best city in the Bay Area. For the past four years, Councilmember Cutter has worked hard to renew interest and attract investment in San Leandro. Great gains have been made with the public private partnership of the high-speed fiber optic network, Lit San Leandro. This innovative project has succeeded in attracting advanced manufacturing and high-tech companies, bringing well-paying jobs to San Leandro. Pauline understands the importance of San Leandro welcoming innovative ideas and new business. She knows we need to create job opportunities and business hubs so the children who grew up in San Leandro want to remain in the community to raise their families.
Peter Hirshberg has been at the forefront of innovation and disruptive change in emerging media and technology for more than 25 years. He's passionate about the intersection of technology and civic engagement and has been instrumental in creating two centers of urban innovation from scratch.
Peter is at the epicenter of the noisy, connected world of online conversation. A Silicon Valley executive with several high profile marketing and branding related ventures, Peter has led emerging media and technology companies at the center of disruptive change for more than 20 years.
Peter is Chairman of The Re:imagine Group, a fast growing agency helping brands with strategy and marketing in a world of empowered connected audiences. He has worked with executive teams at Best Buy, Sony, IBM, Verizon, Estee Lauder, Telefonica and many others on digital and growth strategies.
Job Titles:
- Senior Advisor, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Job Titles:
- Executive Director, Seasteading Institute
Job Titles:
- Sustainability Manager, City of San Leandro
Sally Barros received degrees in Urban Planning at MIT and International Studies at UC Berkeley, focusing on sustainable development in Latin America. After 20 years of roaming the globe from Central America to Brazil to Sweden to Chile, working in journalism and forestry management, Sally settled back into the United States in 2001. She landed a job in her hometown with the City of San Leandro as an urban planner and has infused green building and energy efficiency into the planning practice. She became the City's first Sustainability Manager in August 2016 with the Public Works Department.