Digital Hollywood Spring, March, 2006 Speaker Newton Lee, Editor-in-Chief, ACM Computers in Entertainment Newton Lee is the founder and president of the Institute for Education, Research, and Scholarships - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity organization dedicated to improving society by providing resources to high achieving students, scientific researchers, nonprofits, and educational organizations. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computers in Entertainment magazine - a nonprofit educational publication to promote research and development in all aspects of entertainment technology. The magazine has garnered the support of more than 100 leading professionals and scholars representing major universities, Hollywood studios, and Fortune 500 companies. As a senior producer and engineer at Disney Online (1996-2006), he founded the Disney Online Technology Forums and developed over 100 games and activities for the award-winning web site Disney.com and Disney's Blast, as well as enhanced-TV programs for ABC's "Summer Jam Concert" and Disney Channel's "In Concert." As a computer scientist and researcher at AT&T Bell Labs (1985-1989), he created expert systems for telecommunication networks as well as experimental design in off-line quality control. He was invited by the MIT School of Engineering to give a lecture on his work. A pioneer in CD-ROM development, he created one of the first object-oriented scripting languages and cross-platform multimedia compilers for interactive CD-ROMs. He co-developed 11 CD-ROM titles including the award-winning bestsellers "The Lion King Animated Storybook," "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree," and "Lamp Chop Loves Music." He and two of his colleagues received the 1995 Michigan's Leading Edge Technologies Award. He has been a juror for the 2003 Emmy Awards for Advanced Media Technology, a member of the Disney VoluntEARS Leadership Council in 2005, a vice president of community development at Burbank Jacyees in 2000, and a co-chairman of three international conferences on entertainment technology. Being active in community service with the Boys & Girls Club, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, and other charity organizations, he has been honored with two community development awards from the California Junior Chamber of Commerce, and four project leadership awards from The Walt Disney Company. He has published two novels, a book chapter in "Machine Learning and Uncertain Reasoning" (Academic Press 1990), and two dozen research papers on software applications in medical science, national security, quality control, telecommunication, library science, the Internet, and computer games. He is currently working on a new book and screenplay. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Virginia Tech, an electrical engineering degree and honorary doctorate from Vincennes University. His graduate thesis won an ACM scholarship award and led to the creation of the first commercial artificial intelligence product from AT&T Bell Labs. He currently serves on various advisory boards at the Art Institute of California, Beijing Multimedia Industry Association, Digital Hollywood, UCLA, USC, and Virginia Tech. He also serves as the International and Business Development Director at Nanyang Technological University's Interaction and Entertainment Research Center. Newton Lee lives in Los Angeles, California, with his little dog whom he adopted from the Burbank Animal Shelter. He can be reached via email at newton@ifers.org.