Aaref Hilaly
Co-founder, CenterRun

As Co-Founder, President and CEO of CenterRun, Aaref led the company from inception in 2000 to its acquisition by Sun Microsystems for $66M in August 2003. CenterRun became a leading provider of application provisioning software to enterprise data centers, with customers such as Genentech, First American, Kaiser Permanente, Staples, and VeriSign. The company was financed by Sequoia Capital, Crosslink Capital, and others.

Prior to co-founding CenterRun, Aaref worked in corporate and business development at ExciteAtHome. Aaref joined ExciteAtHome from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he led projects advising Fortune 500 companies on a variety of sales, marketing and product development issues.

Aaref earned an MBA from Harvard Business School with high distinction as a Baker Scholar. He holds a BA Honors from Oxford University and was awarded a Fellowship to McGill University, where he completed his Masters in Economics.

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Aamir Matin
Managing Director, Pakistan Software Export Bureau (PSEB)

Dr Matin is the Managing Director of The Pakistan Software Export Bureau PSEB and advisor to the Ministry of IT and Telecom, Government of pakistan.

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Alex Vieux
CEO Red Herring; Chairman and Founder of DASAR

Alex Serge Vieux, Chairman, Founder & CEO of DASAR in 1990, brings more than 20 years experience in the IT industry to the company. Vieux’s accomplished background as an entrepreneur, high-tech journalist, professor, and advisor to the French government makes him a seasoned IT executive with a broad knowledge base.
Vieux has been named one of the most influential people in the European technology community for several years running, in Time Magazine’s Digital Europe A-List of the top 25 people shaping Europe’s new economy (Time Europe Digital 25).

Vieux served or curretly serves as a director of several international public and private companies, including BVRP, CheckPoint Software, Commerce One, Computer Associates, Daum Communications, Kyriba, Qualys, and Tandem Computers.

In 1997, Vieux was named president of the Infotech Commission for the French Republic, under the auspice of the Minister of Economics and Finance. Active in public service, he served as special advisor to the Minister of Industry in France from 1991 to 1993, covering all issues relating to the high-tech industry.

In 1988, he was named Visiting Professor at the University of Paris Dauphine. Eager to share his knowledge of the IT industry, Vieux also held a position at the University of Paris La Sorbonne.

Vieux started his career at Andersen Consulting (1981-1985) implementing information systems. In 1985, he took a position as the US business correspondent for the French daily Le Monde and has authored more than 300 articles profiling the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley. As an entrepreneur, Vieux co-founded CATS Software and Renaissance Software, firms focusing on the banking industry.

A graduate of the Institute d’Etudes Politiques and the French business school HEC, Vieux holds a law degree from the Universite de Paris and a MBA from Stanford University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar

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Ammar Hanafi
GP, Alloy Ventures

Ammar H. Hanafi joined the firm as a General Partner in 2005 from Cisco Systems, Inc. Ammar received a B.S. in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University (1988) and an MBA from Stanford University (1995). His last role at Cisco was Vice President of New Business Ventures where he led new product efforts in the enterprise datacenter market. From 2000 to 2002, he was Vice President of Corporate Business Development and in that capacity, he was responsible for Cisco’s acquisitions, acquisition integration, investment, and joint venture activity on a global basis. He joined Cisco in 1997 as a member of the Corporate Business Development Group. During Ammar’s tenure, Cisco’s Business Development Group completed over 50 acquisitions, leading Cisco into a number of major new businesses, including optical networking and integrated voice and data infrastructure and applications. In addition, the Business Development Group made over $750 million in venture capital investments during the same timeframe. Prior to Cisco, Ammar held positions at PanAmSat Corporation, a global satellite services provider, and the investment banking firms of Morgan Stanley and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

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Amra Tareen
Partner, Sevin Rosen

Since joining Sevin Rosen Funds in early 2000, Amra Tareen has focused on telecommunications and networking, with a particular interest in networking technology and researching investment opportunities in cable and broadband. Her previous experience includes management positions at leading communications companies Lucent Technologies and Ascend Communications, where she played a key role in growing Ascend's DSL business. She is currently sits on the boards of Clovis, Lambda Optical Systems, and Lemur. Amra Tareen holds a BA in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Anthony Mitchell
President, InternationalStaff.net

Anthony Mitchell heads InternationalStaff.net, a project management firm that represents U.S. clients seeking to have IT work done in South Asia. This is the third IT firm he has co-founded with a South Asian focus. He began his involvement in the South Asian IT industry in 1987 as a client-side project manager for large turnkey database projects.

To familiarize the U.S. client community with IT outsourcing opportunities--and to help IT entrepreneurs overseas understand how to do business in the U.S.--he writes a column for the EcommerceTimes.com Spotlight Features section. He grew up in Hong Kong and received both his Masters and Bachelors degrees from Rutgers University. His hobbies include sport climbing, sea kayaking, and chess.

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Arif Janjua
Managing Director, Technology & Communications

Mr. Janjua has more than 20 years of professional experience both in senior positions at technology companies and as a consultant specializing in high tech. Prior to joining SDG, he was president and chief executive of Anuvio Technologies, formerly known as I-drive, a leading global provider of storage management and application software. Mr. Janjua led the transformation of the company from its single focus of online storage services to a storage management software product company. Previously, Mr. Janjua was High Technology Practice Leader and vice president at A.T. Kearney. Areas of consulting specialty included business strategy, operations, and information technology. Mr. Janjua received an M.ASc. in electrical engineering from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.

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Awais Leghari
Federal Minister for IT and Telecom, Govt. of Pakistan

Mr. Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, the Federal Minister for Information Technology; Government of Pakistan, hails from a notable political family of Dera Ghazi Khan, an underdeveloped area of the southern Punjab. Mr. Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari was born on 22nd March 1971.

Mr. Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari had his early education at Aitchison College Lahore. He passed Higher Senior Cambridge Examination in 1988. Mr. Leghari got his masters in Economics (Game Theory) from the University of Rochester, New York State USA in 1994.

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Babar Ahmed
Film maker

Babar is a Washington DC based filmmaker. He has directed several films including the multiple award-winning short film 'Mother & Son' and 'Genius'. His films have been screened at international film festivals around the world. He holds an 'A' grade in the certificate for 'Advanced Film Making* from NYU.

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Dilawar Syed

Dilawar manages CRM products and go-to-market strategy for the Communications, Media and Energy Industries at Siebel Systems. Dilawar was formerly at Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group and before that at Ernst & Young in Management Consulting. He serves as the Vice President of The Wharton Club of Northern California and as the Vice President of OPEN Silicon Valley. Dilawar holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and BS in Computer Sciences and Economics with Honors from The University of Texas at Austin

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Forest Baskett
General Partner, NEA

Forest joined NEA in 1999 as a venture partner and became a general partner in 2004. Forest focuses on information technology investments. Present board memberships include Aeluros, Atheros Communications, Catalytic, Chelsio Communications, Fulcrum Microsystems, Luxtera, Nanochip, Tableau Software, Silicon Microwave Systems, SiTime Corporation and T-RAM. He also serves as an advisor to DataDomain, FineGround, Foveon, PolyServe, ReShape, Spreadtrum and Telegent Systems. Previous board memberships include among others, E2O and Newisys. Forest also previously held an advisory position with SMIC. Prior to NEA, Forest was Senior Vice President of R&D and Chief Technology Officer of Silicon Graphics Inc. He founded and directed the Western Research Laboratory of Digital Equipment Corporation from 1982 to 1986 before joining SGI. Prior to that, he was a professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University from 1971 to 1982. He also spent two years at Los Alamos National Laboratory building an operating system for the original Cray-1 computer and a year and a half at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center as a Principal Scientist doing VLSI research. At Stanford, he worked with Andy Bechtolsheim on the SUN workstation project, with Jim Clark on the Geometry Engine project, and with John Hennessy on the MIPS microprocessor project. Dr. Baskett received a BA in Mathematics from Rice University, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

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Hasan Rizvi
VP, Oracle

Previously, Co-founder and CEO of Karient Inc. Formerly, co-founder and Vice President at Corio.

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Imran Khan
Member Parliament & Former Captain, Pakistan Cricket Team

Imran Khan is seen as Pakistan's finest ever Cricket all-rounder and, along with Garfield Sobers and Ian Botham, one of the greatest of all time. He made his Test debut against England at Birmingham in 1971 at the age of 18 In the same year, he made his ODI debut also against England at Nottingham. He captained his country for 48 matches. In first-class cricket, he took more than 1000 wickets at an average of 22.32 runs per wicket.

Khan went to school in Lahore and then attended the Royal Grammar School Worcester and Keble College, Oxford where he was also Captain of the Oxford University Cricket team in 1974. He comes from a cricketing family with two of his cousins Javed Burke and Majid Khan also having played test cricket for Pakistan.

Since retiring from Pakistani Test cricket, Khan has been devoting most of his time to the Shaukat Khannum Memorial Hospital, a state-of-the-art charitable Cancer Hospital that he established using donations in Lahore. He has also started a socio-political movement in Pakistan known as 'Tehrik-i-Insaf' or 'Movement for Justice' and ran for office in the National Elections. He became a Member of Parliament for Mianwali in the October 2002 elections.

Amongst his honours include being awarded the Hilal-e-Imtiaz in 1993 by the Pakistani government, Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford and Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1983. He captained the Pakistani cricket team to victory in the 1992 cricket World Cup.

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Imran Qidwai
Founding charter member of OPEN

Mr. Imran Qidwai, a founding charter member of OPEN, has significant computer and telecommunications industry experience in the US and Pakistan. He is experienced in managing distributed development teams between US & offshore locations, and is knowledgeable in the current market and trends in offshoring, outsourcing and BPO. Over the past year he has been evangelizing Pakistan as a destination for offshore outsourcing and BPO.

He has worked at large and small, public and private companies. As an entrepreneur himself, in 1999 Mr. Qidwai co-founded and was VP of Engineering at MessageMachines, Inc., a Boston-based startup acquired by NMS Communications in April 2002. Previously, he was VP of Engineering at SoftLinx, focused on Internet-based fax messaging products for the enterprise. Work experience also includes NMS Communications, Lotus (IBM), Digital Equipment (HP/Compaq), Philips Electronics, and International Computers Limited (Fujitsu).

Mr. Qidwai holds a Master's degree in Computer, Information and Control Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; a post-graduate diploma in Digital Electronics from Philips International Institute of Technological Studies, Eindhoven, the Netherlands; and, a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Peshawar.

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John Morgridge
Chairman of Cisco Systems

John Morgridge, Chairman of the Board at Cisco Systems, joined Cisco in 1988 as President and CEO. During his tenure as CEO, Morgridge grew the company from $5 million in sales to over $1 billion, and from 34 employees to over 2,260 employees. In 1990, he took Cisco public and in 1995 was appointed Chairman.

Twenty years ago, Cisco Systems did not exist. Today, the company has more than $18 billion in revenues with nearly 36,000 employees operating in 65 countries. Cisco is one of the best examples of a company using Internet technology to gain competitive advantage with over 90 percent of the company's orders and customer support being transacted via the Web.

In his role as Chairman, Morgridge dedicates his time to Cisco's education and government initiatives. He also teaches part-time at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and speaks regularly on entrepreneurialism and management strategies at corporations and universities around the world. In 1996, Stanford's Graduate School of Business honored John with the Arbuckle Award. Morgridge holds a BBA from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from Stanford University. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Lesley College, Northern Illinois University, Richmond-The American International University in London, and Carleton University.

Morgridge serves as Director of numerous non-profit organizations, including the American Leadership Forum (ALF) for Silicon Valley, the Nature Conservancy (TNC), Business Executives for National Security (BENS), the Tech Advisory Board for Milwaukee Public Schools, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the Cisco Foundation and the Cisco Learning Institute. He is a board member of CARE and Interplast, and is also a member of the Stanford Business School Advisory Council.

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Lubna Khalid
CEO, Real Cosmetics

Ms Khalid is Founder and CEO of Real Cosmetics. A film maker and a former model, Lubna launched Real Cosmetics in 1999, a cosmetic brand committed to empowerment through personal enhancement and diversity of beauty ideals.

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Mamoon Yunus
CTO, Forum Systems

Mr. Yunus is co-founder of Forum Systems. Prior to Forum Systems Mamoon was a Global Systems Engineer for webMethods, where he developed business integration strategy and architecture plans for Global 2000 companies such as GE, Prudential, Pepsi, Siemens and Mass Mutual. Mamoon has held various high level executive positions at Informix and Cambridge Technology Group. Mamoon has a high level of experience in developing complex and advanced technological solutions for enterprise customers. He holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering degree from MIT, a Mechanical Engineer's Degree from MIT, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.

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Mir Imran
President In-Cube;Venture Partner DFJ eplanet

Mir Imran is a Venture Partner and Senior Advisor in DFJ ePlanet's Silicon Valley office, where he focuses on life sciences and technology investments on a global basis. Mr. Imran is the Founder and President of InCube, Inc., a Silicon Valley incubator for medical and Internet companies. Through this incubator, and prior to its establishment, Mr. Imran founded numerous medical and high technology companies. Mr. Imran currently serves as a Director for Surface Genesis, CardioVasc, NovaSonics, JStreetData.com and IntraPace. Mr. Imran was also a Founder and Director of Percusurge, a marketer and developer of circulatory system devices, which was eventually acquired by Medtronic in 2000, as well as of Cardiac Pathways, a developer of catheters that was acquired by Boston Scientific in 2001.

After three years of research in bioengineering at the Rutgers Medical School, Mr. Imran developed numerous medical devices and obtained close to 200 patents in his name. One of his high profile medical inventions is the EEG monitoring sensor array that the American astronaut John Glenn used on his latest space mission. This device later became the core product for Physiometrix and has become a standard diagnostic tool used in neurophysiology. Mr. Imran was a pioneer in the development of the automatic implantable defibrillator, a device that has saved many thousands of lives. In 1990, Mr. Imran invented a basket catheter that obtains multiple ECG signals simultaneously from various areas of the heart. This invention became the initial product of Cardiac Pathways, and is now widely used by cardiac electro-physiologists. In 1992, he developed a low-pressure balloon and aspirator system for use in catheter based interventions. This device was the first to employ the concept of distal protection during high-risk interventions. Mr. Imran's device is now the primary innovation for PercuSurge, a company that is currently completing human clinical trials with the device.

In the medical field, Mr. Imran's interest is in developing medical devices that blur the distinction between the organic and the synthetic, thereby advancing patient treatment options. Mr. Imran, who contributes to numerous scientific publications, holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Bioengineering from Rutgers University.

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Monis Rahman
CEO, Naseeb Networks

Monis Rahman is a computer architect by training holding 9 patents for his work at Intel and other Silicon Valley chip companies. Mr. Rahman has founded several internet startups including eDaycare which he sold to ParentWatch, and is currently CEO of Naseeb Networks, Inc.

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Naeem Zafar
CEO, Pyxis Technology

Naeem Zafar has 22 years of experience in high-technology and also a partner with Altair Ventures, an organization focused on mentoring entrepreneurs. Currently his full time job is the president and CEO of Pyxis Technology Inc. an EDA (Electronic Design Automation) startup specializing in chip design software for nanometer technology. Until December 2004 Mr. Zafar was the president and CEO of Silicon Design Systems, an EDA software company in Silicon Valley that develops physical design software for deep-submicron chips. He turned the company from an ASIC and design services company into a pure EDA software
company and raised $9.2M in series B funding.

Prior to SDS, he was president and CEO of Veridicom, Inc., a Lucent/Bell Labs spin-off specializing in silicon fingerprint sensors and authentication software. Mr. Zafar turned the company around, raised over $10M and sold it to a new group of investors. Veridicom International is now a publicly traded company. Previously, Mr. Zafar spent 11 years at Quickturn Design Systems, serving as vice president of technology strategy and later as the VP of worldwide marketing. He played a key role in establishing Quickturn as the EDA market leader for emulation and verification products, and was involved with several strategic acquisitions, as well as the IPO and sale of Quickturn to Cadence Design Systems in 1999. Zafar began his career at Honeywell Research Labs in Minneapolis, Minn. as a VLSI design engineer and research scientist, and is the founder of two EDA companies. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Brown University (magna cum laude), Rhode Island, and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota.

Zafar has extensive experience in starting companies, fund-raising, all aspects of high-tech marketing, M&A and company restructuring and turn-around, worldwide channel development and IPO. Zafar has been a frequent lecturer on Entrepreneurship and high-tech startups.

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Omar Amanat
Founder, Tradescape

Mr. Omar S. Amanat most recently was the Founder, CEO and majority shareholder of Tradescape Corp, a next generation brokerage and technology firm for professional investors, which he founded in 1997 and sold to E*Trade Financial in 2002 becoming one of E*Trade's largest shareholders. Prior to forming Tradescape, Mr. Amanat co-founded CyberBlock, the predecessor of CyberTrader, Inc., which was acquired by Charles Schwab in February 2000. Mr. Amanat is the recipient of the prestigious Albert P. Einstein Technology award for outstanding corporate citizenship and sits on the Board of Trustees for the Harlem Youth Development Foundation. He has been profiled in various media venues including Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and is a frequent public speaker. Mr. Amanat's current passion is finding solutions and fighting the real "war on terrorism" by addressing hatred and humiliation head on and strengthening moderate hands in the Muslim world. He plans to launch the first Muslim American cable and satellite channel, in the United States in the summer of 2004. Mr. Amanat attended the University of Pennsylvania and the top-ranked Wharton School of Business and he currently sits on the Board of Advisors for Wharton's Entrepreneurial Council.

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Safwan Shah
CEO, Infonox

Dr Safwan Shah founded Infonox in 1998 after 14 years of experience in the technology industry. Safwan envisioned the architecture that became the Active Payment Platform (APP) and is the driving force behind the concept of delivering financial solutions on demand, like a utility. Safwan's career includes work at a NASA research center for the commercialization of space, as an analyst for a hedge fund, as the Director of Technology for an affiliate of IBM Microelectronics and as an advisor, co-founder for other technology start-ups. Safwan has published research papers in applied instrumentation, neural networks, fuzzy logic and non-linear information analysis. Safwan is often an invited speaker on technology and is regularly cited and quoted by American Banker, Bank Technology News, Credit Debit News, Gaming Journal, Kiosk News and other publications.

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Shahid Khan
Managing Director, BearingPoint

Shahid Khan is a managing director with the Media & Entertainment practice of BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE - News), one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms. Prior to Bearing Point, Mr. Khan was Director at IBM Global Services Media Practice. Mr Khan is also President of OPEN New York.

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Sohaib Abbasi
CEO, Informatica

A 22-year enterprise software industry veteran, Sohaib Abbasi joined Informatica as president and CEO of Informatica in July 2004. Prior to Informatica, Mr. Abbasi spent 20 years at Oracle Corporation where he was most recently a member of the Oracle's executive committee and was senior vice president of two major divisions, Oracle Tools and Oracle Education. Mr. Abbasi joined Oracle Corporation in 1982 when it was a 30-person startup and was instrumental in growing the business from $4 million in annual revenues to over $9 billion in revenues and over 42,000 employees worldwide. As part of his contribution, Mr. Abbasi envisioned and launched the Oracle Tools business, which he grew from zero to $3.75 billion in cumulative license revenues. Mr. Abbasi graduated with honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1980, where he earned both a BS and an MS degree in computer science.

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Talat Hasan
Chairman ICC

Talat Hasan was chairman and CEO of Sensys Instruments, a company she founded in 1996 to market products for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Sensys was acquired by ThermaWave in Dec 2001. Prior to founding Sensys, she was vice president of corporate business development at Tencor Instruments (now KLA/Tencor), and, in 1983, was cofounder of Prometrix Corporation, serving as a board member and senior vice president of strategic planning when the company merged with Tencor.

Previously, she worked as a scientist, conducting research in semiconductor characterization and process control and working for almost five years at Signetics Corporation/Philips Research Labs in Sunnyvale.

She currently serves on the board of directors of Microbar and the board of trustees of IBPW (Indian Business and Professional Women), and is a charter member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). She is also the Chairman of ICC (Indian Community Center). She is also active as an Angel Investor for start-up companies and a mentor to several budding entrepreneurs. She holds an M.A. in physics from Oxford University and a B.Sc. in physics from Aligarh Muslim University, India.

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Umair Khan

Umair Khan is Chairman and CEO of Clickmarks, a venture-backed Enterprise Software company in Silicon Valley. He is also Founder and Chairman of Verisium Inc., a Software Testing Tools Company. Both companies have development centers in Karachi. Previously, Umair was Founder and Chairman of Wordwalla, a multilingual technology company. He was also co-founder of Chowk, a South Asian Web community. Umair started his professional career at Intel Corp. Umair has been featured in leading print media including The New York Times and USA Today, and has spoken about entrepreneurship at institutions such as Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley. Umair did his BS in Mathematics (1992) and his MS in Computer Engineering (1995), both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Waheed Qureshi
Chairman and CTO Zenprise

Waheed is Founder, Chairman and CTO of Zenprise Inc., a venture backed enterprise software startup. Prior to Zenprise, Waheed was Founder and Chairman of Zambeel, an enterprise-class network-attached storage vendor.

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Zain Jewanjee
CEO, Jewanjee Insurance

Zain is CEO of Jewanjee Insurance. He started the insurance company as an agent and broker nearly 20 years ago. His extensive network and knowledge of this industry and the problems facing the customer in specific areas has formulated the concept of this high growth, fast paced company. He is driving the marketing, sales, relationships and product development efforts.

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Zia Chishti
CEO, The Resource Group

Prior to co-founding TRG, Mr. Chishti was the Chairman & CEO of Align Technology (NASDAQ: ALGN), a Silicon Valley based technology company which he founded in 1997. While at Align, Mr. Chishti raised over $250 million in capital including an initial public offering in January 2001 and led the company from a concept to a global business with annualized revenues of $70 million and 1,000 employees in fifteen countries. He also developed Align's strategy of offshoring manufacturing and business services, which resulted in the location of approximately 700 employees at offshore facilities in Pakistan, Dubai, Mexico and Costa Rica. Prior to founding Align, Mr. Chishti worked for Morgan Stanley & Co. in both New York and London where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions for financial institutions.

Mr. Chishti received his MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and his AB from Columbia University.

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Zia Yusuf
SVP Corporate Strategy, Office of the CEO, SAP AG

Senior Vice President, Office of the CEO, SAP AG. Previously Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of SAPMarkets, Inc., the B2B exchange company of SAP AG, and Managing Director, SAPMarkets Asia Pacific. Formerly with Goldman, Sachs & Co. and the World Bank. OPEN Executive Committee.

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