AGENDA
7:30 AM - Breakfast & Networking
8:15 AM - Welcome & Opening Remarks
8:25 AM - Keynote Speaker - David Koehn, Managing Partner & Founder, The Batchery
8:55 AM - AI Impacts and Considerations - Dr. Joseph Cazier, Associate Director, Center for AI and Data Analytics (AIDA), Arizona State University
9:15 AM - Broadband - Dr. Erin Carr-Jordan, Executive Director of Digital Equity and Social Impact, Arizona State University
9:30 AM - Cybersecurity - Mark Dallmeier, President, MARS Cyber Solutions & Products Division, All Points Logistics
9:45 AM - Power Considerations
- David Valenzuela, Chief Business Attraction Officer, City of Peoria
- Tom Doyle, Economic Development Manager, City of El Mirage
10:05 AM - Fireside Chat 1
- Raghu Santanam, Senior Associate Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University
- James Klingelsmith, Project Director, Haydon H3D
10:30 AM - Fireside Chat 2
- Diane Meza, Director, Maricopa Information Technology Institute
- Paula Livingston, Interim Vice President Academic Affairs, Estrella Mountain Community College
- Cristina Ortiz, AI Education Manager, Global Government Affairs, Intel Corporation
11:00 AM - Smart Region Development
- Ben Williams, Program Manager, The Connective
- Jake Taylor, Design & Technology Manager, The Connective
11:15 AM - West Valley Start Up Scene - Ron Babich
11:30 AM - Digital Twin & Immersive Technology in the West Valley
- Vince Serpico, Founder & CEO, Founders Workshop
- Ana Tomboulian, Co-Founder, Decision Tree AI
11:45 AM - Wrap Up - Sintra Hoffman, President & CEO, WESTMARC
12:00 PM - Adjourn
Speakers
Keynote Speaker
David Koehn
Managing Partner & Founder
The Batchery
As an academic, David has taught at the University of Florida, Eastern Oregon State College, Blue Mountain Community College, the University of Alaska, and San Francisco State University. David also taught as part of a teacher exchange with Japan. He taught in seven different schools in Japan on the northern island of Hokkaido in the Akaigawa region. David also taught in several high schools across Alaska, including high schools in Barrow and the Bethel region. David was awarded an Annenberg Fellowship to the Breadloaf School of English as a Breadloaf Teacher Network member. David left teaching in 1997 to begin a career in technology.
In the technology space, David has worked for the likes of AvantGo, Satmetrix, TailWind, David Koehn Inc. (his own consulting business), Saba, Oracle, D2L, and Udemy. David's use of technology for learning has been evident from the early days of the Internet to his current efforts at Udemy. Along the way, David has had some luck starting new ventures and has spent a few years investing in innovations as the founder of an accelerator (batchery.com) and a small venture fund (IASV.com) based in Berkeley, CA. The Batchery has served over 120 startups across 12 batches over the last five years. IASV is deploying its first traunch and has invested in several startups. Before the Batchery, David was a founder-friendly investor through an angel group called the Sand Hill Angels.
David's commitment to the arts is longstanding. David was the first Chairman of the Board for the literary non-profit Omnidawn from 2014-2021 and remains an active board member. In high school, he attended the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts and returned there later during college for two consecutive summers as an Assistant Teacher and Resident Assistant. Throughout college and graduate school, David wrote and published widely. He had the good fortune of working with Jim Daniels, Debora Greger, William Logan, and Donald Justice. In the years to follow, David would have the opportunity to study with many more poets, writers, and artists, including Dean Young, C.D. Wright, Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass, Sharon Olds, Andrew Hudgins, Arthur Sze, Donald Revell, Rusty Morrison, and many others.
David has published several books of poetry, including Coil (a chapbook of poems), Tunic (a letterpress chapbook of translations of Catullus), Twine (Bauhan), and Scatterplot (Omniodawn). David also edited Compendium (Omnidawn) about Donald Justice's thoughts on prosody. Omnidawn has scheduled his next full-length book of poems, Sur, for release in 2024.
Dr. Joseph Cazier
Associate Director, Center for AI and Data Analytics (AIDA)
Arizona State University
Joseph Cazier, PhD, CAP is a Clinical Full Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics at Arizona State University. He previously served as the Dean’s Club Professor, Associate Dean, and the Executive Director of the Center for Analytics Research and Education at Appalachian State University. Cazier also co-founded the International Working Group for Bee Data Standardization, the World Bee Count, and served as the Chief Analytics Officer for HiveTracks.com. His latest book is Leading in Analytics: The Seven Critical Tasks for Executives to Master in the Age of Big Data.
Dr. Erin Carr-Jordan
Executive Director, Digital Equity and Social Impact
Arizona State University
Erin Carr-Jordan is the Social Impact Officer Principal at Arizona State University. Throughout her career, her activities have lived at the intersection of academia, coalition building, advocacy, and impact. In addition to her experience as a CEO and entrepreneur, Carr-Jordan has spent over a decade in higher education where her roles have included faculty member, Department Chair of Graduate Psychology, and Associate Dean of Academic Partnerships. In her current role, Carr-Jordan leverages her business and academic experience to lead large-scale initiatives to solve wicked problems including reducing inequalities, achieving gender equity, and ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all. In addition to board and committee service in the university setting, Carr-Jordan was appointed by the Arizona Governor to serve on the ICC Board for Infant and Toddler Development, sat on the American Association of Community College Council (AACC), is an advisory board member of SeaTrust Institute, is a member of UN Women, and is an executive representative to the United Nations Global Compact. Carr-Jordan's legislative and consulting experience includes coauthoring regulation in AZ and IL, legislative consulting at both the local and state level, and advocacy work in environmental safety, public health, and human development. In 2013 she was selected as a Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Fellow. She has been an invited guest on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, Sanjay Gupta MD, and Anderson Cooper. She has also been featured in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, the Arizona Republic, and in Parenting Magazine. Her work is the subject of a public relations textbook chapter now in its 2nd print. In 2015 she was a delegate at COP21 in Paris and in 2016 earned a Certificate in Leading Operational Excellence from MIT. Carr-Jordan is a Senior Sustainability Scholar in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Carr-Jordan is a triple alumna of ASU. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, an M.A. in Lifespan Human Development, and a B.A. in Broadcast Business Management.
Mark Dallmeier
President, MARS Cyber Solutions & Products Division
All Points Logistics
As the President over the MARS Cyber Solutions and Products division at All Points Logistics, Mark is responsible for driving the growth and product strategy for the organization. Over the last 27 years Mark has co-founded and grown technology and services companies in multiple industries. Mark is a technology and cybersecurity industry veteran, and has held various Senior Executive, C Level, and Advisory Board positions in multiple cyber, risk, and compliance organizations helping to build award-winning and nationally recognized solution providers and technology companies such as BishopFox, Terra Verde Security, and Avertium. As the President and CEO of The ROBB Group and co-founder of Channel Savvy (sold to Avnet), Mark consulted to early-stage hyper-growth companies and Fortune 100 organizations, driving transformation and growth initiatives, generating over $1.8B in new revenue for those companies. Mark actively publishes research, speaks and facilitates workshops and panels on cybersecurity, risk, corporate growth, and transformation topics.
David Valenzuela
Chief Business Attraction Officer
City of Peoria
David Valenzuela is the chief business attraction officer for the Economic Development Services Department. His primary focus is to plan, organize, manage, and implement the activities of economic development business attraction, as well as sales and marketing under the department’s marketing and communications strategy for advanced industry business attraction and recruitment, as well as to advance the city’s economic development implementation strategy.
David spent more than 20 years in the economic and business development arena. He has worked with a wide variety of companies within many targeted industries, including assisting start-up companies.
Before joining Peoria, David worked with Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport Authority as marketing and economic development manager and assistant manager and the Greater Phoenix Economic Council where he served as a vice president of business development. David began his career with the Town of Gilbert in Economic Development. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University and an MBA from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Tom Doyle
Economic Development Manager
City of El Mirage
David Valenzuela is the chief business attraction officer for the Economic Development Services Department. His primary focus is to plan, organize, manage, and implement the activities of economic development business attraction, as well as sales and marketing under the department’s marketing and communications strategy for advanced industry business attraction and recruitment, as well as to advance the city’s economic development implementation strategy.
David spent more than 20 years in the economic and business development arena. He has worked with a wide variety of companies within many targeted industries, including assisting start-up companies.
Before joining Peoria, David worked with Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport Authority as marketing and economic development manager and assistant manager and the Greater Phoenix Economic Council where he served as a vice president of business development. David began his career with the Town of Gilbert in Economic Development. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University and an MBA from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Dr. Raghu Santanam
Sr. Associate Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business
Arizona State University
Raghu Santanam is Professor and McCord Chair of Business in the Information Systems Department at the W. P. Carey School of Business. He is currently directing the Department of Labor funded digital workforce initiative, AZNext at the university. Professor Santanam serves on the Phoenix Business and Workforce Development Board.
Professor Santanam’s research has focused on the impacts of technology and technology strategies on businesses, society, and consumers. His research areas of interest include, health information technology, digital platforms and the impacts of augmented intelligence on the workforce and future of work. His research on digital platforms has explored emerging business strategies, consumer preferences, and trends in software markets and platforms. Santanam is an active researcher in the health information technology area and has published scholarly articles on electronic medical records impacts on hospitals, personal health records adoption by consumers, and technology-based decision support for public health. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Management Science, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Decision Support Systems.
Before joining W. P. Carey, Professor Santanam was a Henry Woodburn Fellow at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications from the National Institute of Engineering, his master’s degree in industrial management from the Indian Institute of Technology, and a second master’s degree and PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
He currently serves on the editorial boards of premier journals and has served as an advisory editor of the Elsevier series on "Handbooks in Information Systems." He has been commended for his contributions to academia. He is an Association of Information Systems (AIS) Distinguished member and was awarded a distinguished research career award by the W. P. Carey School of Business. He has also won numerous teaching awards at the School.
Diane Meza
Executive Director
Maricopa Community College District Information Technology Institute
Diane Meza brings experience with growing technologies through 30+ years of work in the field of education. She worked for Mesa Public Schools and was named “Teacher of the Year” in 1997. Diane has spent 20 years as a technology/curriculum director and administrator serving as the K-8 technology teacher, technology administrator, vice principal for The Diocese of Phoenix, and principal for Leman Academy of Excellence.
Currently as the sector driven institute Director, Diane works across multiple colleges building strategies to grow new talent and develop needed curriculum with industry and faculty. Diane nurtures and develops industry and economic partnerships to stay current with changing technologies. Maricopa IT Institute (MITI) will stay current with the ever changing needs of the workforce, and will provide a sound foundation that will keep Maricopa capable of delivering the changing technologies of the future.
Cristina Ortiz
AI Education Manager, Government Affairs
Intel Corporation
Cristina Ortiz is the director of Intel® Digital Readiness Programs in the US. She leads the AI for Workforce program and collaborates with community colleges to prepare an AI-ready workforce in the US. She has over a decade of experience bringing STEM programs to diverse audiences. In her 20-year career at Intel, Cristina has excelled in multiple disciplines, including corporate affairs, sales and marketing, and manufacturing. She earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Arizona, an M.S. in Engineering from Arizona State University, and is PMP certified. Cristina lives in Arizona, enjoys hot weather, and loves to travel with her family.
Ben Williams
Program Manager
The Connective
Ben joined The Connective in January 2021, after receiving his Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Urban Management from Arizona State University. During his MPA program, Ben worked as a management intern for the Alliance for Innovation (AFI) and the ASU School of Public Affairs Center for Urban Innovation, where he researched emerging practices nationally for smart city technology, autonomous vehicle integration, regional collaboration, and economic development.
Prior to joining The Connective, Ben worked as a Strategic Management Intern for the City of Tempe, where he implemented strategic management software and developed standard operating procedures. He also worked as a Management Intern for the City of El Mirage, where he built a performance management system and established a home rehabilitation program for residents using CARES act funding.
Jake Taylor
Design & Technology Manager
The Connective
Jake joined The Connective in 2022, while at the Thunderbird School of Global Management pursuing his Master of Global Management in Design Thinking, where he led several international initiatives around design and innovation. Jake was also a National Science Foundation research fellow in Citizen Centered Smart Cities and Smart Living where he researched and worked in citizen engagement and gamified living.
Prior to attending ASU, Jake specialized in game design and production where he leveraged behavioral design in user engagement, publishing titles for Nintendo and other platforms. Jake’s understanding of consumer behavior and user/citizen experience all how to leverage critical design frameworks that allow for deeper and more engaging implementations and holistic outcomes for residents across Greater Phoenix.
Ron Babich
Managing Partner
West Valley Innovation Alliance
Ron Babich is a serial entrepreneur, startup addict, podcaster, and investor.
Ron is the CEO of ProStar Network Services a growth platform for service businesses.
Ron chairs the non-profit Arizona West Valley mentor and investor ready organization West Valley Innovation Alliance - WVIA.
He was the inaugural winner of the AMA Marketer of the Year Award, and has contributed to CMP, SMS, Project Management Institute, Constructech, AZ Big Media, and other publications.
He has 2 IPO exits, 9 startup exits, specializes in startups and converting companies to profitability. Most recent 100 million dollar exit to Thoma Bravo.
Vincent Serpico
Founder / CEO
Founders Workshop
A prominent figure in Arizona's tech community for nearly 25 years, Vincent Serpico is the Co-Founder of Decision Tree AI and the Founder and CEO of Founders Workshop, a 14-year-old software development company, has built over 150 mobile apps, web apps, and system workflows & integrations for entrepreneurs and SMBs using a finely-honed business-centric process.. With multiple startups under his belt, he has worn many hats—ranging from developer to VP of Development, to CTO, and serial entrepreneur. Vincent's unique ability to bridge the gap between business and technology has been a driving force in his career. His multifaceted experience and profound understanding of both the technical and business landscapes make him a respected and influential presence in the industry. Vincent's passion for entrepreneurship and technology shines through his roles as an active public speaker on AI and technology topics, as well as an active angel investor.
Ana Tomboulian
Co-Founder
Decision Tree Ai
A visionary leader and Co-Founder of Decision Tree AI, Ana Tomboulian is no stranger to innovation and transformation. As a 2nd time founder, she has dedicated her career to identifying and seizing missed opportunities for businesses, translating into millions in reclaimed revenue. With an impressive thirteen years of hands-on experience in software development for production environments, her expertise extends to AI, Python, Django Rest Framework, Vue.js, and CSS3. Decision Tree AI, under her co-leadership, aims to help businesses leverage their data and processes with AI. Beyond her professional pursuits, Ana's passion for mentorship, teaching, and public speaking reflects her philosophy of "learning by doing." A student of life, her blend of technical prowess, leadership, and dedication to real-world problem-solving makes her an influential figure in the tech industry.
