BDC Venture Capital is a major venture capital investor in Canada, active at every stage of the company’s development cycle, from seed through expansion, with a focus on technology-based businesses that have high growth potential and are positioned to become dominant players in their markets. BDC Venture Capital has been involved in venture capital since 1975, and has to date invested in more than 400 different companies. It currently manages approximately $550 million in venture capital assets invested in the areas of Life Sciences, Telecommunications, Information Technology, Advanced Technologies and Fund Investments. For more information, see www.bdc.ca.
Victoria Park Capital Inc. ("VPC") is an employee owned venture capital and private equity management company based in Regina, Saskatchewan with a satellite office in Saskatoon. VPC currently manages an investment portfolio on behalf of its founding client, Investment Saskatchewan ("IS"), with a value of $550 million. In addition to the management of these existing assets, VPC offers investment capital for companies with operations in Saskatchewan, who require more than $3 million in total equity or near-equity financing. www.victoriaparkcapital.com
Golden Opportunities Fund is Saskatchewan's first and largest Provincial Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Fund with more than $100 million of assets under management. The Fund has invested in Saskatchewan growth companies across 10 different industry sectors, making a significant and positive impact on the future of Saskatchewan. For further information, visit www.goldenopportunities.ca
Jim Rutt was formerly CEO of Network Solutions Inc., (acquired by VeriSign Inc., NASDAQ: VRSN) which administered domain name spaces on the Internet. He co-founded Business Research Corp., which developed online information products for the investment community. Rutt also was the co-founder of First Call and has served as CEO of Thomson Technology Services Group; and CTO of the Thomson Corporation (TSE: TOC) as well as, Chief Strategy Officer of VeriSign, Inc. Rutt received his bachelor's degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a vice chairman of the Santa Fe Institute. He was also a researcher in residence at the institute, where he studied the application of complexity science to financial markets, social simulations and artificial intelligence. Last month, he was appointed to the New Mexico State Investment Council by Gov. Bill Richardson.
Doyne Farmer, one of the pioneers of what has come to be called chaos theory, is McKinsey Professor, Sante Fe, Institute, and the co-founder and former co-president of Prediction Company, a firm whose business is automatic trading of financial instruments based on time series based directional forecasting methods. Farmer was an Oppenheimer Fellow at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In addition to his work on chaos, he has made important theoretical contributions to other problems in complex systems, including machine learning, a model for the immune system, and the origin of life.
John R. Koza, Ph.D., is a consulting professor in the department of electrical engineering, School of Engineering, at Stanford University. An expert on genetic programming, he has published 170 papers; co-authored 50 papers; and published four books on genetic programming, most recently “Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence” with Martin A. Keane et al. As well as academic posts throughout Stanford University, Koza served as chairman, CEO and co-founder of Scientific Games, Inc. from 1973 through 1987, where he co-invented the rub-off instant lottery tickets used by state lotteries today. He is chair of the Genetic Programming Conference; a member of the Science Board at Santa Fe Institute; a member of the Board of Trustees of Santa Fe Institute; a member of the business committee for the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference; and editor or consulting editor to various publishing houses and journals. Koza holds B.A., M.S, and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in mathematics from the same university.
Martin A. Keane received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Northwestern University in 1969. He worked for Applied Devices Corporation until 1972; in the Mathematics Department at General Motors Laboratory until 1976; and as vice-president for engineering at Bally Manufacturing Corporation until 1986. An expert in genetic programming, Keane is currently a consultant to various computer-related and gaming-related companies. He has co-authored two books on genetic programming: “Genetic Programming III: Darwinian Invention and Problem Solving” and “Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence.”
Matthew Raggett, a veteran of the semiconductor and electronic design automation (EDA) industries, is a managing partner of ADAUS Ventures Inc. He has served as president and CEO of Analog Design Automation, which was acquired by Synopsys (SNPS) in 2004. Prior to ADA Matthew was part of the management team that led the successful spinout of inSilicon(INSN) from Phoenix Technologies and its later IPO. At inSilicon, which was later acquired by Synopsys, he held the position of vice president of worldwide field operations. Matthew has held management positions at Cadence Design Systems, National Semiconductor, Fairchild Semiconductor, and ITT Telecommunications. He currently sits on the Board of Directors of several EDA companies including Javelin Design Automation, Inc. and LogicVision (LGVN).