Gerard
Eldering is Founder and President of InnovateTech Ventures, specializing
in venture creation based on inventions licensed from universities and research
institutions. Since the company’s founding in 2007, InnovateTech has
supported numerous mid-Atlantic universities and co-founded three start-up
companies including AlphaDetect and Trilumen. Gerard has been working in the
technology transfer community for more than a decade and is passionate about
the creation of professionally managed and funded start-up companies. Prior
to launching InnovateTech, he founded and served as Director of the Technology
Transfer Office at The MITRE Corporation. He is an MBA and a registered patent
agent.
Kef
Kasdin is a general partner of Battelle Ventures and Innovation Valley
Partners. Kef focuses on investments in cleantech and communication technologies,
working closely with the national laboratories that sole limited partner Battelle
Memorial Institute manages or co-manages for the U.S. Department of Energy
around the country. Kef currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Aldis,
Inc.; Ampulse Corp.; Planar Energy; and Rajant Corp. She also is an ImageTree
Corp. board observer. Active in the venture community, she sits on the Board
of Directors of the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds and is
a coauthor of Inside the Minds: Green Venture Capital (Aspatore Books, Nov.
1, 2009). Kef has been involved in developing and executing strategy for high-technology
companies for more than 20 years, including Sarnoff Corp. and 3Com Corp.,
where she was the company’s first Executive in Residence, Office of
the Chairman. She became a technology start-up consultant in the late 1990s,
a venture capitalist in 2000, and a founding member of the management team
forming Battelle Ventures in 2003. Kef holds a B.S.E degree in operations
research from Princeton University and an MBA from the Graduate School of
Business, Stanford University.