Monday, January 7th, 2019

3:30 - 4:30 PM

Session I

LVCC, North Hall, N258

The Augmented Reality Experience

As mobile/smartphone technology emerges, each release indicates advances in the Augmented and Mixed Reality experience. From photographic innovation and texting to how data is explored is headed into the AR/MR universe.  Get ready for AR/MR as your favorite technology innovation.

Elizabeth Kiehner, Senior, Global Design Services Director, IBMiX

Olivier Koelemij, Managing Director, MediaMonks L.A.

Mark Francis, Product Marketing Lead, Sumerian, Amazon

Nigel Tierney, Head of Content, Verizon/RYOT

Catelyn Orsini, Lead Architect, Voice Services, Plantronics

Michael Leventhal, Partner, Holmes Weinberg, P.C.

Moderator - Bill Newell, CEO, North South Studios LLC

Elizabeth Kiehner is the Global Design Services Director and Chief of Staff at IBM. Elizabeth Kiehner is a design thinking evangelist who believes in harnessing the power of creativity to solve global business challenges. By unearthing human insights, Liz co-creates customer-centric experiences that have the power to transform the enterprise. Elizabeth Kiehner’s day ranges from identifying and mentoring the newest crop of talent to capturing the pulse of an ever-changing innovation and technology landscape. Her passion and creativity have inspired some of the world’s most recognized brands with enterprise engagements and design thinking workshops with the C-suite. Elizabeth Kiehner is also a founding partner of Thornberg & Forester, an award-winning, full service design agency in the heart of Union Square in NYC.

Catelyn Orsini, Lead Architect, Voice Services, Plantronics: Catelyn Orsini serves as the Lead Architect, Voice Services at Plantronics. In this technical role, Catelyn is charged with transforming innovative ideas and features into real products. Passionate about excellent audio design, Catelyn’s vision is to extend voice communications from connecting people to each other to connecting people with the technology around them. Catelyn first joined Plantronics in 2007 and spent five years in the Acoustic and Audio System group, designing and tuning both enterprise and consumer products. She then worked at Apple as an Acoustic Engineering Manager, and for more than two years lead the team responsible for advanced system testing and validation of headsets, loudspeakers, and third-party accessories. Catelyn holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology (Caltech),  and a MS in Acoustics from Penn State University. Keen on advocating women in technology, Catelyn leads the Plantronics’ Women’s Leadership Group and is active in the community to support young women in engineering.

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.

Mark Francis is a Product Marketing Manager for AWS. He is the Product Marketing Leader for Amazon Sumerian, a browser-based authoring tool to create and publish AR, VR and 3D applications. Prior to joining AWS, Mark spent two decades in Silicon Valley building new ventures in the mixed reality, wearable, smart devices and ehealth markets. He is a published writer and an active inventor with 10 patents issued and another 20+ patents pending.

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.