KEYNOTES

Neelan Choksi

Neelan Choksi is the COO of Lexcycle where he is responsible for marketing, business development and strategic management. Lexcycle, the company behind Stanza, has over 1.4 million users in over 60 countries and nearly 7 million e-books downloaded (as of February 2009). Stanza is the most popular e-book reader for the iPhone and IPod Touch. Neelan is a frequent keynote about e-books at conferences.

Prior to joining Lexcycle, Neelan was the COO at SpringSource, the company behind the popular open source Spring Framework, and co-founder and President at SolarMetric, a leading object relational mapping provider, which was acquired by BEA Systems in 2005.

Neelan currently serves on the boards of SpringSource and Tasktop Technologies. Neelan is a graduate of MIT, Stevens Institute of Technology, and the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business.

Michael Ross

Michael Ross is the Senior Vice President, Education General Manager, at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., where he heads worldwide electronic and print publishing. Prior to joining Britannica in 2002, he was the Executive Vice President and Publisher of World Book, Inc., and has held executive positions at other publishing companies, including NTC Publishing Group. He began his publishing career as an editor for Time-Life Books and worked for three years in their Tokyo bureau.

Michael is responsible for forming many successful co-publishing ventures with such global companies as Bertelsmann, IBM, and AOL. Two years ago he partnered with KidsforKids, a German media company, to produce a multimedia product for learning English called Discover English with Ben and Bella, which has become a best-seller in Asia, Europe, and South America. Earlier this year, he established a joint publishing partnership with Hong Kong-based Planetii to bring SmartMath, an online math program for children ages 5-10, to North America.

He is listed in Who’s Who in America, and in October 2002 he was inducted into Printmedia’s Production Executives’ Hall of Fame. He is a recipient of the “Making It Happen Award,” and in December of 2009 he will be inducted into the AEP Hall of Fame, the educational publishing industry’s highest honour.

Michael has a B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota, an M.A. from Brandeis University, and a certificate from Stanford University’s Advanced Management College. He is married with three children.

Richard Pipe

Richard Pipe is CEO of Singapore- and India-based InfoGrid Pacific, a content management and publishing services provider.

He has been developing XML technology for publishing since 1999. Prior to that, he spent several years creating interactive multimedia CD-ROMs. Richard started Versaware India in 1999, designed and developed their XML production services business scaling up to 1500 staff. After the dot-com melt-down and Versaware's collapse, he re-engineered the Indian organization to Digital Publishing Solutions and created the products then called DX-*.

Mark Szulc

Mark Szulc, Technical Director for Adobe Australia and New Zealand, has more than fifteen years of experience in the IT and graphic arts industries and 5 years with Adobe. Specializing in cross media publishing and business process improvement, he has held various positions from creating some of Australia & New Zealand’s first online web presences, working on the leading magazine publications, to managing a development team, system admin and consultancy services.

Prior to working with Adobe, Mark held the position of IT manager with creative services workflow company, Sinnott Bros, part of the IPMG group.

Aside from being an evangelist for Adobe’s solutions & technologies, Mark heads up Adobe Pacific’s Technical Services team, a group of specialists covering Adobe’s vast array of technology.

When not out & about with Adobe, Mark can be found tinkering away on his own web site (www.markszulc.com), immersed in an online game, exploring the world or trying to write a new song in his home studio.

Sherman Young

Sherman Young is a Senior Lecturer in the Media Department at Macquarie University, where he teaches new media theory and production. His research focus is on the cultural impact of the new media technologies. He is the author of The Book is Dead, Long Live the Book (UNSW Press 2007). In addition to chronicling the death of the (printed) book, his current projects include explorations of the music industry and a forthcoming book on Media Convergence with Palgrave in the UK.

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