Can You Feel Me Now?

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In today’s mobile-centric world, our lives have been transformed to expect to discover and share almost every aspect of our lives on the go. With these discoveries come personal reactions through photos, videos, social media, and mobile apps, fueled by a host of human emotions. Companies are purposely developing mobile experiences to spark a range of behaviors that help us live happier lives. The panelists will highlight how they view the intersection of psychology and technology and how that insight drives new innovations in their mobile business.

Presenters

Cameron Clayton

Pres, Digital Division

The Weather Channel

As president of the digital division, Clayton leads the teams responsible for The Weather Company's (Weather) mobile and digital applications, interactive television, consumer applications software, and product development for weather.com and Weather Underground. Clayton most recently served as executive vice president of digital product. Prior to that, he was senior vice president of mobile and digital applications. Under his leadership, The Weather Channel mobile product line has become a recognized industry leader and one of the top application developers in any category. Prior to that, he was vice president of business development at Weather where he was responsible for all distribution relationships for Web and mobile, including all the major wireless carriers and wireless content aggregators. His work has resulted in the widespread availability of products and content from Weather including The Weather Channel mobile download and multimedia offerings.

Gary Klassen

Principal Architect

BlackBerry

Gary Klassen is Principal Architect at BlackBerry and the creator of BlackBerry Messenger. A 14 year veteran at BlackBerry, Gary is a student of the art of bringing fragmented ideas to reality, and is grateful to be part of the mobile revolution that is changing the ways we create, work and communicate. He has a passion for well-designed and technically excellent software that gets out of your way.

Gary was the key developer behind BlackBerry projects such as the aforementioned BlackBerry Messenger, the BlackBerry 950 browser, Themes, Instant Messaging, Maps, HTML Email, Clock and the now iconic BlackBerry Spark. As Principal Architect, he works alongside the world class development teams at BlackBerry to innovate and drive key initiatives like responsiveness, efficiency, fluidity, and seamlessness, which are key to mobile and what we call the BlackBerry DNA. He is also the inventor or co-inventor of over one hundred patents related to his expertise in mobile software development.

Gary attended the University of Waterloo, where he received a degree in Geological Engineering. He is currently based in Malmo, Sweden.

Giorgos Zacharia

Chief Scientist

Kayak

As Chief Technology Officer at KAYAK, Giorgos oversees the global KAYAK Technology team. He oversees all aspects of Product, Technology, Engineering, and Data Science, and focuses on optimizing User Experience and Monetization.

Prior to KAYAK, Giorgos was the Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientist of Open Ratings Inc. (ORI), where he led the development of supply base risk management solutions using predictive data mining. At ORI, he led the invention of the most accurate corporate bankruptcy analytics algorithms, which provided the key value proposition to the company's product suite. Giorgos was instrumental in raising $26M in venture capital funding and oversaw the acquisition of two software companies as well as the supplier-rating unit from Dun & Bradstreet (D&B).

Giorgos holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As member of the Center for Biological and Computational Learning of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), his research focused on multitask learning and ranking algorithms. Additionally, Giorgos holds a master's degree from the MIT Media Lab, and two bachelor's degrees from MIT, in Computer Science and Mathematics, on a Fulbright scholarship. Giorgos has won five medals in International Physics and Mathematics Olympiads.

Tara O'Donnell

VP

Text100

Tara O‘Donnell has 18 years of consumer and corporate communications experience. She leads Text100‘s North American consumer sector, a group that is dedicated to helping clients reach their lifestyle target audiences. At Text 100, Tara currently oversees the MTV, Shazam, British Airways and KAYAK.com accounts. Tara is responsible for crafting strategies and providing counsel on messaging and positioning for all of her clients as well as working with several companies such as Food Network, Bravo, VH1, The Weather Channel, and BlackBerry on consumer positioning as well as new product launches and digital initiatives. Prior to joining Text 100, Tara spent five years leading North American Corporate Communications for Samsung Electronics, playing a pivotal role in shaping Samsung‘s brand identity as a digital technology leader in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.