Judges:
Our list of judges for the competition are likely to knock your nerdy socks off. Judging the 2012 NYC TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon will be our elite handpicked team, consisting of:
Nora Aboutsteit, Founder & CEO of Kollabora
Nora Abousteit is a “rare leader who can pull together technology, publishing, and fashion, and inspire people” (Fast Company). Nora recently founded Kollabora.com, an online craft supply market place with with multiple communities that offer fashion forward DIY projects in jewelry, knitting, and sewing. Before starting Kollabora, Nora reinvented an old sewing magazine into the DIY fashion community BurdaStyle.com, with over 700,000 members now an icon in the sewing community. She is part of the founding team of the DLD (Digital Life Design) conference. Nora is a published author and has been invited to share her experience at Picnic, FOO (Friends of O’Reilly Media), Parsons School of Design, Stream, the World Economic Forum Media Summit, and NY Forum. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, BusinessWeek, Women’s Wear Daily, and Fast Company. She was just elected to the board of the Craft and Hobby Association. Nora grew up in Germany, lives in Brooklyn, NY and holds a degree in Middle East Studies, Political Science, and Philosophy from the American University in Cairo.
You can find Nora on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/noraa and her personal site at http://www.noraabousteit.com
Dave Jagoda, Director of Technical Talent at Andreessen-Horowitz
Previously he has been a Director of Engineering, Engineering Manager, Support Engineer, Consulting Engineer, Sales Engineer, and a Software Developer. He has worked at HP, Opsware, Loudcloud, and Netscape. He studied Computer Science at Columbia. He is fascinated by computers, software, and the Internet.
You can find Dave on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/davejagoda and Andreessen-Horowitz online at: http://a16z.com/
Tarikh Korula, Co-founder and CEO, Mahaya
Tarikh is Co-founder and CEO of Mahaya. Mahaya organizes social media to help people see and understand their world.
In 2005, Tarikh Co-founded Uncommon Projects, a pioneering New York based hardware and software design studio. Uncommon Projects worked with Fortune 100 companies to research and develop myriad digital media products. Uncommon Projects was a winner at Yahoo’s first open Hack Day. Tarikh is a member of root at NYHacker and has helped organize or advise the TechCrunch hackathons.
Tarikh has lectured on hardware and software prototyping at the Web 2.0 conference, Maker Faire, NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), SVA’s MFA in Interaction Design program (IxD) and the Parsons Design Technology Program. Tarikh received his Masters from NYU/ITP.
You can find Tarikh on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/tarikh and his blog at http://unprojects.tumblr.com/
Dinesh Moorjani, Founder and CEO of Hatch Labs
Dinesh Moorjani is the Founder and CEO of Hatch Labs, a mobile technology innovation sandbox. Dinesh’s technology career spans the intersection of mobile hardware & software. Dinesh served as the Sr. Vice President of IAC Mobile, which he started in 2007, and served as the VP of Strategy & Corporate Development at Citysearch, now CityGrid Media.
Previously, Dinesh built consumer technology products at Samsung Electronics. He created thesatellite radio-MP3 business fromconcept to
steady-stateoperations, winning over 10 distinguished consumer technology & industry awards. In Asia, Dinesh managed cross-border
teams in the Samsung Chairman’s Office, focused on new product innovation and turnarounds. He has worked in Investment Management at
Goldman Sachs and held various strategy consulting positions at Arthur D. Little and Mainspring (acquired by IBM), where he was an early
employee. Dinesh co-founded Saffronart, a leading online marketplace for art auctions & e-commerce. He serves as a board director and
advisor for several tech companies, and co-founded a digital publishing business.
Dinesh earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
You can find Dinesh on Twitter here and his Hatch Labs website here.
David Tisch, Founder TechStars NYC and Managing Partner BoxGroup
David is the Managing Director of TechStars NYC. David is also the Managing Partner of Box Group, a New York City based seed-stage angel capital firm. David was named to NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology and serves on the Investor Board of Venture for America. Prior to joining TechStars, David served as Executive Vice President of Interactive Strategies at kgb, a global information services company. While at kgb, David founded and lead Knowmore.com, a social aggregation startup within kgb. David has a B.A. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. David was born and raised outside of NYC in Westchester. David likes wearing hoodies and over using ellipses…
You can find Dave on Twitter at http://twitter.com/davetisch and his personal site at http://www.davidtisch.com/
Kip Voytek, SVP, Director Digital Innovation | MDC Partners
As Director of Digital Innovation, Kip is responsible for leading the integration of creative technology and digital marketing with MDC agencies and their brands. Kip was SVP, ECD of Interaction Design at R/GA, providing creative leadership on the Nike, Nokia, SC Johnson, J&J, IBM and other accounts. Before marketing, Kip designed PC games based on licensed properties such as X-Men, Spiderman, Barbie, Clue, Scooby-Doo and Animaniacs.
You can find Kip on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kipbot and online at http://www.kipbot.com