5:15 PM - 6:15 PM
Track IV:
The University Project - Open to All Attendees
"Research, Development and Investment in Entertainment Technologies and Media Studies Innovation: From the University to Industry Application"
Joe Gaucher, CTO, Video Furnace
Kenn Heller, Associate Director of UCLA's Center for Student Programming
Kathy Smith, Chair of Animation/Digital Arts, USC
Brett Goldberg, President, Cdigix
Janet Pearce Stenzel, Director, Mobile Media Institute, USC
Tim Langdell, Information Technology Program, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Vernon Smith, President & CEO, Amplify, Moderator
Janet Pearce Stenzel, Director, Mobile Media Institute @USC: Ms. Stenzel joined USC as a visiting fellow at the Center for Telecom Management in 2002 when she founded the Southern California Roundtable on Mobile Commerce. In 2004 she helped to launch a multi-disciplinary collaboration (six school and six industry supported centers) under the auspices of the Provost at USC. This Mobile Media Institute is a focus of collaboration research and analysis between academic, industry, and government offices interested in promoting un-tethered engagement in various entertainment, medical, defense, education, community-building, and information processing venues. Prior to launching the Programmes at USC Ms Stenzel created ICM Insights as a business strategy, marketing, and government affairs management service. The ground was laid for this endeavor through her position as Executive Director of the PECC Telecom, Media, and IT Offices. In the context of this office Ms. Stenzel managed the government, industry, and academic collaborations of twenty-five economies committed to business and regulatory advancement in the Asia-Pacific region. In-line with her professional activities in the Asia-Pacific Ms. Stenzel serves on numerous boards. Among these are the International Advisory Group to the PECC, the Steering Committee of the ITU Center for Excellence in Asia, the board of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, and as chair of the board of the Pacific Alliance for use of IT in Education and Training (EduPACT). Ms Stenzel has been honored in a number of Fora for her work in the promotion of IT literacy and skills development, inter-governmental agreements, and multi-media collaborations. Prior professional work includes positions at Bell Atlantic, Burson Marsteller, Newsweek, and the Economic Strategy Institute
Kenn Heller, Associate Director of UCLA's Center for Student Programming: Currently serving as Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Student Programming and as Assistant Dean of Students, Kenn spends most of his time dealing with the use and abuse of technology for students and student organizations at UCLA. As the co-web master of the student groups web site that houses over 300 campus sites, Kenn served on the development team responsible for UCLA’s file sharing response system, which cuts off network access to students having been identified for illegal file sharing. In his role as Assistant Dean of Students, he is the primary contact and disciplinarian for return offenders. In his role as Associate Director, he was responsible for the development UCLA’s Corporate Sponsorship policy and the ongoing interaction with those concerns interested in finding a way to cooperative market to the UCLA community via events. During the course of his 28 years at UCLA, Kenn has also served as a consultant to many entertainment concerns interested in the college age, young adult market, focused on wanting to deliver live and digital content to students. For 17 years he served as a partner in the production company of Kramer, Heller, and King, producing over 150 concerts on the Santa Monica Pier. Kenn is married and has two children and lives in North Hollywood, CA.
Joe Gaucher, CTO, Video Furnace: Gaucher has been involved in the digital video community for over 30 years. He worked with the MPEG Committee to help set the early standards for digital video. He was also on the team that created the first commercial digital video product utilizing early CD-Rom technology for Sony and Philips. Currently, he is the Chief Technology Officer for Video Furnace, Inc. He has participated in over 50 speaking engagements on digital video to multiple industries.
Kathy Smith is Associate Professor and Chair of the Division of Anim
ation and Digital Arts at the School of Cinema-Television, University of Southern California. She is an Australian artist who has been working with painting, installation and animation since 1982. After graduating from Visual Communication at Sydney College of the Arts in 1985 she was awarded the Sydney Morning Herald Traveling Arts Scholarship for painting and in 1986 the Desiderius Orban Art Award from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. From 1987 – 1988 she studied and worked in Europe under the Dyason Bequest study grant at Studio Art Centers International, Florence Italy and the Dr Denise Hickey studio residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris. Since 1984 her films have been screened internationally, including Hiroshima, Anima Mundi and Ottawa International Animation Festivals and she has exhibited internationally at group and solo exhibitions such as Institute of Contemporary Art London, Florence Palazzo Italy, and the Australian National Gallery Canberra. Kathy has created and produced eleven animated films including traditional character cartoons, experimental mixed media animations, and most recently two computer-assisted digital animated films. From 1998-2001 she worked as artist in residence and adjunct faculty at the Division of Animation and Digital Arts, creating ‘Indefinable Moods’ funded by the Australian Film Commission. Since its completion, Indefinable Moods has screened at numerous international film festivals and art exhibitions. It was awarded first place at the City University of Hong Kong Computer Graphics International Digital Media Art Track Award. It was screened at SIGGRAPH 2001 N-Space Art gallery, and the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; it has been documented in Leonardo, the journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology as part of the Ninth New York Digital Salon. Kathy’s work is currently documented in "Animation Now" a world-wide publication by Taschen Press.Tim Langdell, Professor, Information Technology Program, Viterbi School of Engineering, USC: Tim is one of the early founders of the computer and video game industry: in the late 70s he formed EDGE which became one of the top five European games companies. Through joint ventures that EDGE entered into, Tim was effective head of Electronic Arts Europe and Sega Europe. EDGE is best known these days as the top selling games magazine in Europe (soon to be released in the US). While at EDGE Tim produced more than 180 award winning games. Tim first joined the faculty at USC in the early 1990s when, at the USC Film School, he devised and taught the first interactive/games course (which later became a key course in the Interactive Masters). But for several years now, Tim has been on faculty at the Viterbi School of Engineering where he has focused on building ITP's games program. Tim is an author of 3 books on games programming, 1 on virtual reality,has just completed a co-written book on game testing (Game Testing All In One, Thomson, Feb 2005), and has one on Games Curriiculum coming soon. Tim has appeared on TV in such shows as G4/ Tech TV. and he is also an active member of BAFTA/LA (British Academy of Film & Television) of which he was a Director. He is also a member of the Writer's Guild of America and was co-founder of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
Vernon Smith is President & CEO of Ampliphy, Inc., a provider of multichannel video services tailored to the specific needs of universities, where he has responsibility for leading the company and overall corporate strategy and development. Mr. Smith has over 15 years experience in the telecom/media sector. Prior to Ampliphy, he led Société Européenne des Satellites’ business development and investment group which successfully transformed them from a medium-sized regional operator into the largest global satellite group. As part of his responsibilities in SES Technology Investments, he served on various Boards of Directors, including Asia Satellite Telecommunications. Previously, Mr. Smith founded Prism Media, a media-consulting firm that developed digital broadcasting businesses and successfully completed a client IPO. Additionally, while at Hughes Communications, he was the founding Director of DIRECTV International, where his responsibilities included identifying potential video markets, negotiating partnerships, assessing technology developments, and securing project funding. Mr. Smith has spoken at conferences in all regions of the world on satellite services and video distribution. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Washington and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.