Tuesday, October 16, 2018

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Track I: Haas Conference Center, Room 171: Live Webcast

AR to XR - How XR will Fundamentally Shift How Companies do Business in the Next Two Years.

Olivier Koelemij, Managing Director, MediaMonks Los Angeles

Raffaella Camera, Head of Market & Innovation Strategy, Global, Accenture

Leon Laroue, Product Manager, New Ventures, AR Eyewear, Epson

Michael Leventhal, Partner, Holmes Weinberg, P.C., former, Chief Legal Officer and VP, Magic Leap

Nigel Tierney, Director of Development & Production at Oath//RYOT

Moderator - Bill Newell, CEO, North South Studios LLC

Raffaella Camera, Head of Market & Innovation Strategy, Global, Accenture Extended Reality (XR): Raffaella Camera is part of the Accenture Extended Reality (XR) practice and serves as Head of Market & Innovation Strategy, Global. Joining Accenture in February 2017, Ms. Camera shapes virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) offerings, directs the strategy for the creation of XR experiences, manages direct sales in collaboration with internal account teams, oversees indirect sales through the development of assets such as case studies and demos, develops partnerships with external content creators, and leverages partnerships with the VR/AR ecosystem to create revenue opportunities. Ms.

Camera brings 20 years of experience in growing and promoting businesses in the digital ecosystem and direct experience in AR, VR, live video, social and ecommerce. As a business development, strategy, partnership and account management leader, she has helped grow advertising agencies and strategic corporate divisions of digital, entertainment, advertising, ecommerce and emerging technology companies. Within the digital space, Ms. Camera has sold and created digital campaigns (websites, mobile, display, earned media, SEO, SEM, social); defined, set up and run ecommerce businesses (corporate and startups); developed and run partnerships for a recognition-based and AR/VR-based mobile platform; created launch plans and partnerships for live video-based social platforms; and set up the digital partnerships portfolio for an entertainment company. Over her career, Ms. Camera has acquired and managed more than $200 million in business for clients and partners, including major retailers, consumer goods and services, broadcast media companies, automotive manufacturers, and travel and leisure companies. She has also been a key participant in raising and closing $40 million+ in funding. Ms. Camera has won multiple awards in advertising and emerging technology, including Best VR Branded Entertainment at VR Fest, Communication Arts, Webby, and IDG’s DEMOgod Award for Best AR Retail Shopping solution.  An MBA graduate of University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business, Ms. Camera also holds a masters of piano performance from the USC Thornton School of Music and undergraduate degrees from universities in Italy. As a former concert pianist, Ms. Camera performed at a variety of concert halls in Europe and received her SAG membership in the US.

Olivier Koelemij is Managing Director of MediaMonks Los Angeles. Olivier founded the LA office in 2014 and helped build it to a 26 Monk powerhouse with 8 nationalities, whilst also overseeing two office moves and the successful acquisition and merge with Stopp LA in 2015. Under his direction MediaMonks LA now works with the world’s biggest brands and agencies, including Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Google and Intuit. Swapping prizes with Ajax in youth soccer for winning multiple industry awards, Olivier speaks seven programming languages and works across even more time zones. His technical and creative background allows him to talk both ways, translating into productions that exceed the client’s expectations but not their deadlines.

Nigel Tierney serves as the Director of Development & Production for RYOT and is currently overseeing Verizon's 5G Studio as well as the advancement of Mixed Reality experiences with the integration of storytelling, brands & celebrity. Nigel will be discussing the roadmap of Verizon Oath's XR strategy as well as how to foster growth in insuring habit forming patterns of engagement for this powerful narrative technology. Prior to his arrival at RYOT, Nigel served as Senior Technical Director and Creative Lead at DreamWorks Animation with award winning credits including a variety of tentpole franchises such as Shrek Forever After, The Croods, Kung Fu Panda 3 & Captain Underpants.

Leon Laroue is a Technical Product Manager of Augmented Reality Solutions at Epson America, Inc. His focus is in supporting and growing the developer community for Epson’s Moverio family of smart eyewear products, as well as in identifying third-party software and hardware vendors for partnership opportunities. Additionally, Leon is responsible for new product design and development. Epson’s Moverio family of smart eyewear products enable next-generation AR experiences, from the home to the jobsite, including in media, gaming, and entertainment. Leon is actively searching for technologies, content creators and creation tools, and applications that both add utility to Moverio and bring rich AR experiences to the masses. Prior to his current role at Epson, Leon developed enterprise software for Goldman Sachs and Co. Leon holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from UCLA.

Michael Leventhal is a partner at Holmes Weinberg, P.C. He specializes in providing corporate, intellectual property and business transactional services for media/entertainment and technology companies. While managing partner of the entertainment law firm Codikow Leventhal & Carroll in the late 1980’s and early ‘90’s, Michael also developed a practice in high technology and digital media, which began even before the internet was a business model. In 1992, he combined his entertainment and digital media practices, when “multimedia” meant the CD-ROM business. Since that time, Michael has been on the forefront of the legal and business aspects of nearly every major technological innovation in digital media, from payment for electronic transmissions of entertainment content (rather than just shiny discs), to dispute resolution over domain names, to co-branding and cross-licensing agreements for online services, to pay-per-click advertising services, to digital music download services, to television/internet hybrids and the development and licensing agreements required to make them run, to user generated content sites, including development in SecondLife, for social media, and for mobile devices, including phones and tablets, to Alternate Reality Games, to 3D display technology, augmented, virtual and mixed reality. Among his clients have been Fortune 500 companies such as Fox Interactive Media, NEC, and Transamerica; digital vanguards like MySpace, Pop.com, Oversee.net, and GoTV; entertainment/digital technology hybrids such as Motion Theory, Compendia Media, Virtual Netcasting Corporation, the Interactive Television Alliance, PaidContent.org, RockWeb, Satellite Events Enterprises, and Vimby; traditional companies moving into digital media,; and various celebrities in need of  digital media guidance or protection. Most recently, Michael spent the last several years as chief legal officer and vice president at Magic Leap, Inc., the well-known augmented/mixed reality venture.  His duties included standard general counsel responsibilities, content and technology licensing, intellectual property strategy and planning, working with the content team, business development, marketing, HR, and the CEO on special projects, among many other tasks. Michael has represented hundreds of entertainment, digital media and high tech start-ups, early stage companies and middle market companies in music, film, visual effects, interactive television, sports, stand-alone online ventures, entertainment and non-entertainment web-based businesses, software, and more traditional businesses—from formation to strategic planning, structuring companies, M&A and alliances, to licensing matters, to obtaining financing. Working with entrepreneurs and visionaries at all stages of development has long been one of Michael’s passions. Michael has been a partner in a large national firm, a co-owner of several boutique law firms and a business consultancy, a solo practitioner and a senior executive at a high flying technology company. The combination of law firm and business consultancy is consistent with Michael’s holistic approach to representing businesses, both large and start up.

Bill Newell, President, North South Studios, LLC: As a founding partner of North South Studios, Bill Newell brings more than 18 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience to the company. Bill has been involved in production and multimedia from its early days and has had key roles in establishing many of the business processes that today are often taken for granted. Bill's areas of expertise include finance, technology, production, and operations. Bill's ability to increase productivity without sacrificing quality has been proven time and time again and is a key asset to the company. A longtime associate of his partner, Sarina Simon, Bill came to North South Studios from the Knowledge Kids Network where he served as Chief Operating Officer for five years. Bill co-founded the Knowledge Kids Network and was instrumental in defining its business objectives, operational processes, and company structure. His thorough planning and oversight launched the KidsEdge websites. This network of award-winning websites contained more than 250 games, thousands of articles, and had the capacity to support 3.5 million users. During his tenure at the Knowledge Kids Network, Bill also executive produced a 12 minute animated movie entitled, DotzWorld, which premiered on the AOL network and featured 25 original characters. Bill's insightful finance skills were invaluable to the company in its negotiations with AOL and other prominent partners. Prior to joining the Knowledge Kids Network, Bill was Vice President of Production for IXL Los Angeles, a NASDAQ listed Internet services company with more than $12 million in yearly revenue in the Los Angeles office alone. As VP of Production, Bill oversaw all aspects of production and provided sales support for IXL's west coast offices. Always prolific, he supervised and managed the design and implementation of over 100 projects including assignments for Polygram, Fox, Warner Brothers, NewsCorp, Baker and Taylor, Mazda, Kawasaki, Universal Studios, and Technicolor, among others. Making use of his extensive finance background, Bill brought financial discipline to his production team and productivity increased over 200% during his tenure at IXL. Before joining IXL, Bill was Vice President of Production for Digital Planet, an Internet services company that was later acquired by IXL. As VP of Production, Bill provided direct management of technical, production, and creative teams. He also oversaw all proposal submissions, bids, technical analyses, and creative treatments for media, technology, and consumer companies including Intel, Mattel, the US Postal Service, Disney Online and Allstate. Bill is also a veteran of the multimedia pioneering company, Philips Media, where he worked for four years as an Executive Producer, managing two in-house production groups. In this executive role, Bill directed a 35 member staff and produced six educational CD ROM products. He also directed the localization of numerous products for the Japanese, English, Swedish and American markets.