Thursday, May 24th, 2018

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM

Track III: Herscher Hall, 3rd Floor, Room 305

ICOs, Blockchain and Alternative Financing for Film, TV, Games AR/VR, Music, and Media Ventures

Richard "RB" Botto, Founder and CEO, Stage 32

Frank E. Banks, Founder and CEO, Zen

Douglas Buffone, Director of Business Development, Skydance Interactive

Ian Forester, CEO and Co-Founder, VR Playhouse

Michael Terpin, founder and CEO, Transform Group

Ethan Gilmore, founder and CEO, VARcrypt

Moderator - Mariana Danilovic, Founder and Managing Director, Hollywood Portfolio

Frank Erik Banks, Founder & CEO, ZEN: Frank is a veteran software engineer and technologist with over 20 years of professional programming experience, including a stint as a Lead Systems Engineer at Zynga from 2008 to 2010. He is the original creator of both ZEN and our previous app Zeme, a successful video editing app for fandom video creators launched in 2014 that has over 250,000 downloads. “Frank is from our crack squad of late night warriors who scaled the popular Mafia Wars game on Facebook from zero to millions of daily players. He is tirelessly curious to study the outcome that his business and users need, and he will walk through fire to deliver it. He grasps the big picture and solves problems across all disciplines...” - Michael Luxton, Co-Founder of Zynga

Douglas Buffone, Director of Business Development, Skydance Interactive: As Director of Business Development, Douglas Buffone helps lead the business development and partnership efforts for the company’s internal VR development studio, Skydance Interactive, as well as efforts to license the company’s film and television IP throughout the interactive and digital spaces. Having joined the company in June 2017, Douglas is currently spearheading Skydance’s expansion into the LBE and VR Arcade markets in North America, Europe and Asia and also leading interactive licensing and co-development initiatives. Prior to joining Skydance, Douglas was the founder and president of VAR Consultants, a leading VR/AR consulting firm with more than 45 clients spanning the entertainment, tech, interactive, finance and wider enterprise industries. Douglas began his career in high school as a professional video game journalist and then as a video game lobbyist for the ECA. Subsequently he worked in the marketing department at Apple Inc., the Motion Picture Talent department at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and then as an original member of the VR department at Legendary Pictures. He holds a BSFS in International Politics from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Michael Terpin has more than 25 years of PR agency management. He has directly supervised many renowned PR campaigns of the digital media era, including early-stage PR for America Online, Earthlink, Jupiter, Motley Fool, Match.com, and Shapeways, as well as full-service campaigns with established brands, including Alpine, AT&T, Diamond Multimedia, Fujitsu, JBL, Konami, Marriott, Memorex, Philips, Rackspace, Red Herring, and TEAC. In the blockchain sector, Terpin has led the PR efforts for more than 150 blockchain companies and foundations, including some of the leading token crowdsales. Client successes include the launches of Aeternity, Augur, Bancor, Ethereum, Factom, Gnosis, Golem Network, Lisk, MaidSafe, Qtum, and Tether, as well as ongoing campaigns for Bittrex, Counterparty, Dash, Eos, Kraken, NEM, Neo, Storj and Shapeshift. In early 2013, Terpin co-founded BitAngels, the world’s first angel network for digital currency startups, which gave birth in 2014 to the successful CoinAgenda series of blockchain investor conferences in North America, Europe/EMEA, Asia and Caribbean/LatAm. He cofounded early blockchain incubator bCommerce Labs; the Bitcoin Syndicate on AngelList (with legendary super-angel Gil Penchina), and the Dapps Fund, which was a lead investor in the initial crowdsale for Ethereum, Factom, MaidSafe and Storj. He currently heads up the ICO investment committee for Alphabit Fund, a $300 million digital currency fund registered in the Caymans, and advises numerous blockchain companies and foundations, including Bancor, ICOBox. Prior to his exclusive focus on blockchain, Terpin founded Marketwired, one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive international newswires, for which he was a finalist in the 2000 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Originally known as Internet Wire and funded by Sequoia Capital and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Marketwired was acquired in April 2006 by Toronto-based media company, CCN Matthews, and is now owned by NASDAQ, which acquired it in February 2016 for $200 million. Terpin holds an MFA in Creative Writing from SUNY at Buffalo and a dual Bachelor Degree in Newspaper Journalism and English Literature from Syracuse University. He serves as an advisor to SU’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, where he was inducted into its prestigious Wall of Fame. He is also an advisor to the Consumer Electronics Show, where he helps programs the blockchain content, including for CES Asia.

Richard “RB” Botto founded and runs Stage 32, the world’s largest platform for connecting and educating film creatives. Called “LinkedIn meets Lynda for film creatives” by Forbes, Stage 32 boasts a member base of over 500,000 and features over 1,000 hours of film craft and business related education taught by over 500 industry executives across the globe. RB is also a working actor, producer and screenwriter. As a producer, his films have played at dozens of festivals including Sundance and include the award winning feature,  “Another Happy Day,” “Crutch,” and shorts,  “All Things Hidden” and “TAXII.” His latest screenplay, “The End Game,” was purchased and is in development by Covert Media. RB was also commissioned to write the very first book on film crowdsourcing by Focal Press under the American Film Market (AFM) imprint, which was published in 2017. A sought after speaker and mentor, RB has been a keynote speaker and panelist at such festivals and conferences as Cannes, Venice, AFM, Tribeca, Raindance, SXSW and Winston Baker, and has taught at institutions such as Harvard and Columbia University on the subjects of filmmaking, producing, film finance, screenwriting, social media, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, entrepreneurship and business.

Ian Forester is the CEO and Co-Founder of VR Playhouse, a VR creative studio based in Los Angeles. Working in Chicago theater instilled in him a passion for creating transformational experiences that drove him to develop, direct, and perform in dozens of new plays and immersive events in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. After winning LA Weekly’s Award for Best Direction in 2008, he served as the Artistic Director of Needtheater in Los Angeles from 2011 until his first encounter with a VR headset in 2014. That summer, Ian co-founded VR Playhouse to create transcendent experiences in digital space, and it quickly grew into one of the top content makers for VR. What started in his spare room is now a premiere provider of production services for 360 and volumetric video, computer animation, and interactive content for VR and AR. Ian has produced or directed many of VR Playhouse’s 60+ projects, including the world’s first ever 360 lightfield production, VR content for 10 of Fortune’s 100, festival selections for Sundance and Cannes, and award-winning original work for SXSW. He is a member of the Consumer Technology Association’s Working Group for VR/AR, the Entertainment Advisory Board of RIT, and has been a panelist, presenter, or speaker at VRTO, SVVR, Siggraph, Digital Hollywood, The Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, and SXSW. Podcast appearances include Kent Bye’s “Voices of VR” and “It’s All Happening” with Zach Leary, who said of Ian, “He may be poised to become one of the great thought leaders of our generation.”

Ethan Gilmore is the the founder and CEO of VARcrypt.  Prior to founding VARcrypt Ethan was the President of Virtualize, which was a virtual reality focused technology and media company that made premium VR content for companies such as Samsung, SoHo House, Punchdrunk and many others.  Ethan has spoken at Harvard Business School Club of New York, Harvard Business School Club of Philadelphia, Digital Hollywood, Silicon Beach, Jefferies, Young President’s Organization, Viacom, and The New School regarding blockchain technologies and their applications across various industries.  Prior to Virtualize and VARcrypt, Ethan worked in the  media, entertainment, & alternative investment space as well as the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).  Ethan is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Mariana Danilovic, CEO, hollywood portfolio: Ms. Danilovic is the Founder and CEO of hollywood portfolio, a crowd-centric accelerator that develops and operates Augmented, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and digital media companies. Through hollywood portfolio, Ms. Danilovic launched and helped develop numerous technology and digital media companies, and served as the President, CEO and Director of ultralivetv, served on the Board of Directors of Emerge Digital, serves on the Board of Advisors of Transmosis, LoveTV, and NightFlight. Ms. Danilovic was the EVP Business Development for NTN Buzztime, Inc. (AMEX:NTN) and Head of Business Development, Content Aggregation and Programming for MediaZone, broadband video company owned by NASPERS/MIH media conglomerate. She also founded and directed the Digital Media Incubator at KPMG LLP, which launched about two-dozen digital media companies. The companies Ms. Danilovic helped develop received institutional funding from KPCB, Sequoia Capital, Hummer-Winblad, Constellation Partners, Softbank, North Star Ventures, HP, and Intel. Ms. Danilovic headed business development for Peter Guber’s Mandalay Entertainment and was on the management team of the venture fund at Sony Pictures Entertainment, investing in media companies worldwide. Ms. Danilovic also worked for Michael Milken’s Knowledge Exchange and at the Twentieth Century Fox International Television Group. She serves on the Board of Directors of C3, the Arts and Media Node of the Millennium Project, served on the Board of Directors of the Producers’ Guild of America, and is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She previously served on the Board of Directors of Tim Draper’s Zone Club and was a member of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's Digital Coast Roundtable. Mariana earned a Masters in Business Administration from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, with a Minor in Biomedical Engineering from University of California, San Diego.