Jay Amarasekera is a Senior Technology Manager attached SABIC Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation which is one of the world’s top diversified chemical company. Prior to this role, he served as the Technology Manager for Performance Chemicals and Innovative Plastics business units of the company. Before SABIC, Jay served in many managerial positions in General Electric’s former Plastics and Silicones businesses both in USA and China. Prior to joining GE, Jay worked as a Research Scientist in BASF Corporation’s Colorant & Coatings and Performance Chemicals divisions. Jay holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA.
Errol Arkilic is a Founder of M34 Capital. M34 is an investment company that focuses on seed and early-stage projects being spun out of academic and corporate research labs. Typical investments range from $250,000 to $500,000 and usually represent the first outside capital deployed. M34 focuses on turning science projects into companies and does so across a broad spectrum of technologies and geographies. He is also a founder of USRCA.org, a non-profit with a focus on entrepreneur education for science and engineering graduates. Previously, Errol was the founding and lead program director for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program. He led the I-Corps effort from its inception until July 2013. Prior to this, he was the lead software and services Program Director for the NSF SBIR program. Before his government service, Errol was founder and CEO at StrataGent Lifesciences (Acquired by Corium International: CORI) and Manager of Product Engineering at Redwood Microsystems. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University and his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Aero/Astro Engineering from MIT.
John Bacon is expert at driving growth through innovation. He is a founder and chairman of iP2Biz LLC which augments the capability of large industrial companies to bring early-stage innovation ideas and technology from the drawing board to the market. The company’s focus is on sustainable energy, materials and environmental technologies. John has spent his entire career involved with early stage technology, creating early markets for emerging technologies. He worked for 17 years with Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. (now Cisco), in a variety of roles culminating as Group Executive of Satellite Communications. During his tenure, revenues increased from $10M to $1B. He was a software entrepreneur for more than 15 years, running several venture capital-backed companies and leading the IPO teams to take two of them public, one in the United States and one in Europe, after raising close to $40 million from venture capital firms. John was CEO at a company which was based entirely upon a body of IP which had been invented at a major research university, but which wasn’t making commercial progress. His experience there in creating a roadmap into commercial markets, coupled with a period of venture investing, created the framework to understand the challenges and opportunities which led to the founding of iP2Biz 14 years ago. At iP2Biz, John has worked with university researchers all over the world and F -1000 senior executives to help them break the “Innovation Logjam”. He has delivered seminars from Seoul to Copenhagen to help corporations understand how to overcome the barriers which prevent disruptive innovation. He is a trustee of the Georgia Tech Foundation and Chair of Georgia Tech Research Institute. John is proud to be an I-Corps instructor for the node at Georgia Tech.
Jill Becker is CEO and Founder of 02139 Inc. 02139 Inc. is a consulting company that she started in 2013 in order to provide executive services to both public and private technology companies with a heavy focus on accelerating growth and the creation of jobs in a variety of industries. She is very inspired by the top 20+ trends and technologies that will have the largest impact on society over the next 20 years. She also helps connect these companies with investors and helps with M&A transactions. Prior to 02139 Inc., Jill was CEO and Founder of Cambridge NanoTech Inc. that she bootstrapped back in 2003 from her Ph.D. thesis. Under her leadership the company was instantly profitable and had operated at a profit every year since then and has been one of the fastest growing private companies for numerous years in the US from 2008-2012 until it was sold in December 2012. Cambridge NanoTech was sold to Ultratech Inc a public semiconductor company. She continued to help further this transition of the company’s technical, sales and operational functions in 2013. Jill loves entrepreneurship and is very plugged into the startup ecosystem and VC/Angel community. She is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the local universities to help translate ideas into actual companies and to help raise capital and to plant the seed of commercialization in academics and researchers. In addition, she mentors through a variety of entities and through her networks to further the entrepreneurial ecosystem that she lives in. She specifically mentors to help technology and life sciences companies grow and create jobs. She helps non-profits with their development work and fundraising of over $60M. She also advises several funds and venture companies and sits on several boards. Besides being a seasoned executive, Jill holds a Hon B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Toronto and completed her Master’s and Ph.D. in Chemistry at Harvard University and is well versed in all things technology. She is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and has won numerous awards including the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in Energy and Materials. In her spare time, besides travelling, she loves to spend time with her friends and family. She has a passion for snowboarding and like most chemists’ is a foodie and deeply appreciates the science of food and haute gastronomy.
Sherry Benton founder and Chief Science Officer of TAO Connect, is an esteemed psychologist in both research and practice, and has over 25 years’ of clinical and research experience in counseling psychology and college student mental health. Her experience as a Director in the college counseling world revealed a need for a more efficient and effective way to deliver mental health therapy. She saw students in need of treatment sit on a waitlist, and by the time they received services, they may have already lost their entire semester due to mental health problems. Sherry created the TAO platform to expand the capacity of therapists treat students, to augment effectiveness of the treatment, and provide an online therapy option to reach populations who may not have access to on-campus services. Sherry is Board Certified in Counseling Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology and she is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association. Currently, she is the Vice President for Practice of the Society of Counseling Psychology (Division 17 of APA). She served as President Emeritus of the American Academy of Counseling Psychology and President of the Association of Counseling Center Training Agencies. She has many professional publications and presentations, particularly related to college student mental health. The book she co-authored, “College Student Mental Health: Services and Strategies,” is published by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and regarded as an important resource in the college counseling arena. Sherry lives in Tierra Verde, Florida with her husband and labradoodle, Sam.
Platt Boyd is the Founder and CEO of Branch Technology who practiced as an award winning architect for 15 years prior to leaving a partnership three years ago to found Branch. His fascination with natural beauty and amazing structures led to the initiation of a new technology using freeform 3D printing combined with conventional materials to robotically prefabricate architectural assemblies with resource stewardship and unprecedented design freedom.
Michael Cain is Chairman Emeritus of the Angel Resource Institute, a non-profit angel research and education foundation founded by the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. ARI produces the Halo Report with Pitchbook a quarterly definitive report on early stage angel investments in North America. ARI has delivered over 500 in person education programs to over 5000 investors targeting best practices and detailed investment knowledge to angel investors and entrepreneurs in the United States and 35 foreign countries. Cain is the founder, investor, and managing partner of Wilmington Investor Network, LLC an angel investment fund formed in July 2004. His angel funds have invested in over 40 early stage startup companies totally angel investments in excess of $25M.
Maria Dykstra is Microsoft veteran with over 14 years of successes in the online marketing industry. She led teams supporting Fortune 500 brands and created strategy for digital advertising tools covering $2 Billion in annual advertising revenue. Her vision and digital strategy recommendations have been recognized throughout her industry and earned her a number of awards. Maria’s digital marketing career started in 1997 at a small internet startup owned by AOL. After leaving Microsoft in 2012, she channeled her passion for digital technology into a new venture. TreDigital, the agency she co-founded, is now a Global brand with teams on three continents. Maria worked with hundreds of emerging technology companies around the globe helping them create scalable and profitable marketing systems. Maria was featured in Forbes, Entreprenuer.com, FOX, Business Insider and several other top media publications. She was named as the Top Social Media Influencer in 2016.
Annette Finsterbusch was the Fund Founder and Senior Investment Director of the venture arm of Applied Materials. From July 2004 through April 2011, Annette was responsible for developing the venture group’s overall investment strategy and execution plan. She sourced, led, syndicated and managed Applied Material’s investments, while also managing a group of investment professionals focused on other venture investments. She was also CEO for two successful early stage venture backed technology companies. The most recent was Firefly Green Technology (renamed Ketra), an innovative lighting company that has seamlessly integrated LED technology and lighting controls to create a wireless, natural light experience for users. Prior to that, she was CEO of MindShadow.com, a technology spinout of DaimlerChrysler’s Research and Technology Center. Annette has board-level experience at numerous high technology companies in the United States, Europe and Asia, and also at not-for profit organizations such as the National Science Foundation, where she currently serves on the SBIR advisory committee. Annette is a Kauffman Fellow, an elite cadre of the world’s most promising venture investors. She received a Bachelor of Science in economics and geology from the University of Houston, and a Master’s in Business Administration in Strategy and Finance from San Jose State University, where she was honored with the Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award in 2004. Currently, Annette is a board member at Optomec, Inc., a privately held, rapidly growing supplier of Additive Manufacturing systems, and executive chairman at Big Delta Systems, Inc., an early stage company developing novel manufacturing processes to achieve Multilayered cathode architectures in Li-ion batteries.
Edward (Ed) Greer is member of the Scouting & Exploration Network in Dow’s Ventures and Business Development group. In this role, Edward is responsible for finding and evaluating technologies and opportunities that complement Dow’s robust Research & Development pipeline and have the potential to contribute to the Company’s long-term success. Dow seeks innovations that extract value from the intersection of chemical, physical, and biological sciences to help address many of the world’s most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Edward joined Rohm & Haas in 1982 as a senior scientist in Analytical Research where he was promoted to manager prior to moving into Computer Applications research. He then transitioned to Corporate Exploratory research followed by Corporate Development. Edward has extensive experience in research management, market development, and business development for the Electronic Materials and Advanced Materials markets. He has contributed to advancements in ceramics, displays, organic electronics, optical disks, photovoltaics, and microwave devices. Edward earned a B.S. in Chemistry with Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a Certificate of Professional Development from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Executive Education program. Edward is a judge for numerous business plan competitions, and serves on the advisory boards of the Cornell Center for Materials Research and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Proof of Concept Centers.
Michael Horten is a US and European educated lawyer with over 40 years’ experience as a practicing attorney. Mr. Horten began his legal career with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York and Paris. He then spent 25 years with King & Spalding in Atlanta. At the end of 1999, he retired from the King & Spalding partnership to launch Horten CC, a virtual law firm that focuses on the needs of small to medium size companies, with particular emphasis on entrepreneurial growth companies. Horten CC employs a non-traditional practice model that is based on two key philosophical underpinnings: First, Mr. Horten founded the firm on the premise that top-rate legal services do not have to be bundled with the “marble” and “mahogany” environment that typically is associated with those services. The firm has no central offices, no paper files and it uses the latest technology to create efficiencies. As a result, the firm’s fees are considerably lower than those charged by firms of comparable ability and quality. Second, Horten CC bills its clients for the value delivered and not for the time spent by the attorney. The firm does not keep track of every “six minutes,” as is the norm in most law firms. The firm believes that its clients purchase its lawyers’ skill, not their time. The firm’s work is typically performed for a fixed fee and maintains pricelists for some of the services that typically are needed by early-state companies. Mr. Horten did his undergraduate studies at Washington State University. He received his law degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1970 and his graduate law degree from Columbia University in 1971. In 1974, he completed the course work for a doctorate in EU law at the University of Paris. A native of Copenhagen, Denmark, Mr. Horten speaks (at varying levels of fluency) Danish, French, German, Norwegian and Swedish.
Nancy Kamei is firm believer in the for-profit model as the most effective vehicle for creating change in the world. She is an experienced investor and serial entrepreneur who has attempted to build a life which will accomplish both doing good and making money: a compassionate capitalist. She is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at UCSF and on the National Faculty for I-Corps. After receiving her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from UCSF, she joined Merck in sales. She returned to California to get her MBA from Stanford and was then recruited to the biotechnology industry. Over six years, she was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Institutional Venture Partners and on the start-up teams of four successful biotechnology companies – the most notable was Onyx Pharmaceuticals (recently sold to Amgen for >$10b). She then moved to the investor side of the table: first in public equities at Capital Group Companies (Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Hospitals) and then in corporate venture capital at Intel Capital (Digital Health). She investigated Global Health for Aberdare Ventures and served as the Venture Capital Fellow for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has over forty years of uninterrupted service to the non-profit sector including: Trustee and Chairman of the Investment Committee for the Marin Community Foundation (>$1b endowment) and Governor of the Japanese American National Museum. She lives in Marin County and has one son, who has started his own career as an investor in New York City.
Vic McCray is the Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tangible Science, where he leads the development of technologies to improve the patient experience of contact lens wear. Vic is a general and trauma surgeon in the San Francisco/Bay Area. He received his medical Degree from the University of Illinois, completed a residency in general surgery at the University of California San Francisco-Fresno and received formal training in medical device innovation at Stanford University Biodesign. Vic has served as a lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at several universities worldwide and served as an advisor and consultant for a few startup companies in areas including clinical need assessment, clinical trial design and business model generation. He has assisted in the creation of new medical device innovation programs at several universities around the globe, authored several scientific publications and is an inventor on a number of patents.
Rutvik Mehta is founder and CEO of ThermoAura, Inc. a nano-manufacturing and advanced materials startup commercializing nanomaterials for the thermoelectric markets. He has a Bachelors of Technology in Metallurgical Engineering, and graduated with a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Fall 2011, upon which he started ThermoAura. He invented a unique microwave-materials-manufacturing that formed the basis for ThermoAura’s technology. He has led ThermoAura’s commercialization efforts including building of the state-of-art ton-scale nanomaterials production facility in Colonie, NY and market-introduction of ThermoAura’s first products.
Nithin Michael received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, where he was a Jacobs Fellow. His dissertation at Cornell solved a long-standing problem in networking, which forms the basis of Waltz’s core technology.
Rupal Patel is Founder & CEO of VocaliD, a company that is bringing speaking machines to life through its personalized digital voices. Her training as a clinician and speech scientist led to her initial insight to (re)construct a voice by combining samples of speech from a surrogate talker and the recipient. Rupal is a tenured professor at Northeastern University with joint appointments in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and the College of Computer and Information Science. She is currently on leave to launch VocaliD. VocaliD’s award winning technology leverages its large and growing voicebank of speakers from around the world and voice matching-blending algorithms to create unique vocal identities to enable every voice to be heard. In less than two years since formation, the company has been able to accelerate research and development as well as acquire customers through Small Business Innovation grants from The National Science Foundation and The National Institutes of Health. VocaliD’s technology has been featured on TED and NPR and in leading news and technology outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Bloomberg, and BuzzFeed.
Blake Patton is a technology entrepreneur and investor with 20 years of experience in startup, venture backed, and publicly traded technology companies. Blake currently serves as the Managing Partner of Tech Square Ventures, a seed and early stage venture fund. Tech Square Ventures also manages the Engage fund. Engage is a mentorship-driven accelerator and venture fund in partnership with 10 global companies and Georgia Tech. Prior to founding Tech Square Ventures, Blake was General Manager of the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech – recently named by Forbes as one of the “Top 12 Incubators Changing the World”. Before ATDC, he served as President & COO of Interactive Advisory Software; CEO of iKobo; and EVP of iXL, an e-business consulting firm that he joined through the acquisition of Swan Media and was part of the executive team that grew the company from startup to over $400 million in annualized revenue and an IPO. Blake also founded Siteman – one of the first application service provider (ASP) offerings in the online content management space. He started his career as an Associate at SEI Corporation. Blake currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Pointivo and Cypress.io and on the Board of Directors of UserIQ, Sequr, PreTel, Venture Atlanta, Georgia Advanced Technology Ventures (GATV), and the Southern Capital Forum. He serves on the Advisory Boards of ATDC, and Georgia Tech’s Cowan-Turner Center for Servant Leadership. Blake is also a Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Industry Fellow, serves on the North Carolina State Chancellor’s Innovation Fund Selection Committee, and is Co-Chair of the IoT Startup Ecosystem working group for Georgia Tech’s Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies (CDAIT). He teaches Entrepreneurial Finance (MGT 4072) at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. Blake earned a Bachelor of Industrial and Systems Engineering degree from Georgia Tech, where he was Captain of the Swim Team. He was inducted into the Georgia Tech College of Engineering’s Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni and previously served on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board.
Edmund Pendleton is the Director of the DC I-Corps program, which is administered by the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) within the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. The DC I-Corps program is one of seven locations (Nodes) selected by the National Science Foundation to host and provide training under the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) program. I-Corps provides innovation and entrepreneurship training for federally funded scientists and engineers, pairing them with business mentors for an immersive, fast-paced curriculum intended to help them discover a demand-driven path from their lab work to a commercial product, service, or process. Edmund is a certified NSF I-Corps instructor, acts as the Lead Instructor for national and regional teaching teams, and has led efforts to provide similar training to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NSF SBIR programs. He has also trained international teams, most recently running a program in Mexico that was jointly sponsored by the NSF and US State Department, but organized and led by CONACYT and FUMEC (their partners in Mexico). Edmund has also led regional courses at the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, and Virginia Commonwealth University. In these various roles, he has provided innovation and entrepreneurship training to well over 500 teams and companies. Edmund also serves as the Assistant National Faculty Director for NSF. In this role, he helps to identify and develop new faculty for the program, and he has trained over 30 national and regional I-Corps instructors and adjuncts. He also serves on the NSF I-Corps Curriculum Committee and has developed variants of the curriculum that span a wide range of participants, including: university undergraduate and graduate students; executive MBA students; academic and industry researchers; SBIR Phase I and II companies; small business “main street” companies; and even large federal agencies and corporate clients. Edmund is a technology entrepreneur, angel investor, and startup mentor. He is an Adjunct Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, and a Board Member of the Investment Advisory Board at the Center for Innovative Technology in Virginia. He co-founded a technology company that developed and sold a high accuracy “indoor GPS” system for aerospace and other industrial applications, which was ultimately acquired by Nikon Corporation. He led the business development and sales efforts for the company, but also held several patents related to the technology. He has advised and served on the boards of numerous startups in the DC area. Edmund earned an S.M. in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and an S.M. in Civil Engineering from MIT. He also holds a B.S. in Physics & Mathematics from the College of William and Mary, graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and served as a Rotary Foundation Scholar in New Zealand.
Susan Preston is the Managing Partner of the Seattle Angel Fund, committed to fostering entrepreneurial growth in the Pacific Northwest through early-stage investments, as well as Co-Manager for the Element 8 Fund, focused on cleantech investments. She is also the General Partner for the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, which is focused on seed/start-up stage investments in clean energy technology. Susan has taught in the MBA program and is the Buerk Endowed Fellow for Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington. Susan also serves as chair and a lead instructor for the Angel Resource Institute, a global investor and entrepreneur education organization. Susan is the author of numerous articles, white papers and books on angel financing. Her most recent book, Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs, Early-stage Funding for Long-Term Success was released by Wiley Publishing in March 2007, and her first book, Angel Investment Groups, Networks and Funds: A Guidebook to Developing the Right Angel Organization for Your Community, a comprehensive guidebook on the establishment and operation of angel investment groups, for which she has received numerous accolades, was published by the Kauffman Foundation in 2004. Susan is a world-recognized expert in angel financing and angel organizations. She is a national and international consultant and speaker on economic development, angel and venture financing for numerous countries and NGOs including the EU, OECD, USAID, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Australia, Industry Canada and EBAN. She was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for 6 years focusing on initiatives supporting the growth and success of women entrepreneurs and initiatives related to angel investing and angel organizations. Susan has held several board positions with public and privately held corporations, and has served on numerous non-profit boards. She has been profiled in Red Herring, Inc. magazine, Smart Money, Worth and other local and national publications; and has contributed to numerous nationally published articles on angel investing. Susan is the founder of Seraph Capital Forum, the first all-women’s angel investment organization. Susan spent much of her earlier career in senior management positions in public and private companies, from general counsel to CEO. She was also a partner in two national law-firms, and is a licensed patent attorney. Recent winner of the Angel Capital Association prestigious Hans Severiens Award, given each year to an individual whose actions advance the role of angel investing, expand entrepreneurship and benefit the angel investing industry as a whole. In 2014 Susan received the Small Business Person of the Year for 2014 from the Small Business Council of America. She was honored along with five Congressional representatives in the nation’s capital. Susan also recently receive Senator Cantwell’s Women of Valor award, which was presented by Vice President Joe Biden.
Jenny Rooke is Managing Director at 5 Prime Ventures, where she invests in early stage life sciences companies, specializing in research tools, diagnostics, and synthetic biology. Jenny’s investing experience includes roles at F-Prime Capital, where she served her Kauffman Fellowship, Anterra Capital, and with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to investing, Jenny held multiple executive positions at U.S. Genomics, a venture-backed biotech start-up advancing single molecule detection technologies, and consulted to pharma and biotech with McKinsey & Co. Dr. Rooke holds a Ph.D. in genetics from Yale University and a B.S. in Physics from Georgia Tech.
Miller Tran co-founded Triton, an algae biotechnology company, in April of 2013. At Triton, Miller has served as a Senior Scientist and Associate Director of Research and Development working to advance the algal protein expression platform towards commercialization. Triton has been focused on developing algae as a platform to produce colostrum proteins to improve gut health and to decrease the dependence on antibiotics. Before founding Triton, Miller received his doctorate in Molecular Biology from the University of California, San Diego under the guidance of Dr. Stephen P. Mayfield. There he worked to develop genetic tools and scale up strategies that would facilitate the production of high value recombinant proteins in unicellular green algae.
Rhys Williams is Chairman, Co-founder and Immediate Past President of New World Angels, Inc., a member-managed, structured angel investor group with chapters in seven cities throughout the State of Florida, now into its fourteenth year. He is also the Managing Director of FAU Tech Runway (Florida Atlantic University’s incubator/accelerator/innovation hub). Rhys has also been active in efforts to commercialize biotechnologies from Florida’s research universities and institutes, having co-founded several biotechnology spinout ventures. Previously he was a venture capitalist with SI Ventures (Gartner Group-affiliated fund) and held executive positions with Ixion Biotechnology (stem cells), Smith Barney, American Express, and the U.S. Army Special Forces (Commander, combat diver detachment; “Green Beret”). He presently serves on the Boards of the Florida Venture Forum; the Angel Resource Institute; the New World Angels, Inc. (Chairman), the University of Miami’s Coulter Center Technology Review Committee; the South Florida Science Center & Aquarium (Executive Committee & Immediate Past Chairman); The LeMieux Center at Palm Beach Atlantic University; Univ. of Florida’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation; Synkt Games (observer), and the Harvard Club of the Palm Beaches (President). Past Board service includes Florida Atlantic University Foundation (investment and audit committees), the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research (gubernatorial appointee; Treasurer – Board and Seed Fund), Aplicor, Inc., and Leadership Florida (Advisory Board). Rhys testified before the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Competitiveness and Innovation. He was named to the “TechWeek 100” list of South Florida leaders having the greatest impact on technology and business (2014). He earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College magna cum laude (with coursework at Universidad de los Andes [Bogotá, Colombia]) and both MBA and J.D. degrees from Univ. of Florida (MBA class president; Florida Blue Key inductee). He is admitted to legal practice in FL & NY. He is a graduate of the Venture Capital Institute. A fifth generation South Floridian, Rhys lives in Delray Beach with his wife Dr. Lorna Sohn Williams and their two children. Rhys and Lorna are active philanthropic supporters of the South Florida Science Center & Aquarium, the Florida Atlantic University Foundation, Harvard University, Wellesley College, and past supporters of the JFK Medical Center Foundation and Hospice of the Palm Beaches (Annual Fundraising Event and Underwriting Committee Co-chairs). They previously served on the Missions Committee of Grace Community Church in Boca Raton.