Pete Barr-Watson

Pete Barr-Watson is now working as CTO of Storyplanet Inc, and is an interactive design industry veteran, his background planted firmly in the world of digital creativity. As a founding director (and COO) of one of the UK’s most prestigious new media agencies his award-winning work includes such diversities as a 10 episode cartoon series for TV (still being aired in Europe) and co-authoring technical/creative books such as ‘New Masters of Flash 2002′ (pub: Friends of Ed).

He has worked extensively as interim CTO/COO and technology consultant for several internet startups on behalf of their VC companies and has been a two-time jury member at the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica arts festival in Austria. Most recently Pete worked for Microsoft in Seattle for two years as a Senior Business Development Manager on the Silverlight group of products. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked as the Director of Business Development at Creative Commons in San Francisco.

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Josh Russell

Josh Russell has a diverse background in creating businesses, and doing strategy for small startups and large organisations on a range of projects. Most notably for Comic Relief on the Live 8 and Make Poverty History campaigns, where scale, pressure and innovation are really tested, and at Microsoft as a user experience evangelist taking technologies to new audiences.

In 2003 he created one of the first networks of free wifi hotspots, to support the emerging community of nomadic technologists. This evolved into Metranet, an independent and robust next generation wireless infrastructure company, currently shaking up the telco industry with Wimax, or 4G mobile networks.

His passion is in making things work, from the ground up, with strong and sustainable business models, and clear understanding of industry trends and opportunities.

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