DECEMBER 13, 2007 - "WORKFORCE DIVERSITY = Importance of Inclusionary Hiring & Management Practices"
SPEAKER: Marilyn Nagel - Director, Diversity and Inclusion - Cisco Systems, Inc.
FOLLOWED BY: A Panel Discussion of Local Perspectives
PANELISTS:
Teresa Drabenstadt - CUNA Mutual Group
Winslow Sargeant - Venture Investors
Guri Sohi - Department of Computer Sciences, UW-Madison
WHAT: Workforce perspectives important to a vital and growing economy are revealed in a collaborative environment hosted by Accelerate Madison. Marilyn Nagel opens the program with expert remarks from a national and worldwide viewpoint followed by local panelists who respond and discuss:
• Embracing a workforce that is multi-cultural and multi-generational
• How to find and recruit inclusionary candidates
• Management issues - building teams, cultural considerations, training
• The supply chain of academic students: past, present & future
• Emerging markets evaluation around the globe
• How do we recruit more students - and underserved populations - into the information technology and related disciplines?

OCTOBER 24, 2007 - "POLICY, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIOLOGY - Informing Better Decisions"
SPEAKER: Jim Geringer, ESRI-Environmental Systems Research Institute; and Governor of Wyoming, 1995 to 2003
WHAT: Public expectations grow with each new, disruptive innovation - and location matters. Science, technology, tools, infrastructure and intelligent, geographically-referenced data enable us and our elected decision-makers. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is more than a map, and ESRI is the industry leader in GIS. Speaker Jim Geringer is ESRI's director of policy and public sector strategy. He has served on the Education Commission of the States, John Glenn's National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, the National Commission on Service-Learning, and is currently serving on the State Alliance for e-Health tasked with developing real-world solutions for state-level healthcare challenges through electronic health information exchange.

SEPTEMBER 27, 2007 - "HERE'S WHAT I SAY, NOW GIVE ME WHAT I NEED."
SPEAKER: Udi Manber, a VP of Engineering at Google, responsible for core search
NO WEBCAST of this program (sorry) - Google's speaker addressed only a live audience on 9/27/07 in Madison, WI.
WHAT: A behind-the scene look at Google search. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google has taken the search tool to a very high level of sophistication, while keeping it simple to use. In this talk, Udi Manber described some of the non-obvious things they do at Google, the challenges they face, and some huge opportunities to help people.

MAY 17, 2007 - "HEAVY TRAFFIC: Madison's Beltline to Shanghai"
SPEAKER: Nick Kiernan - TrafficCast International
WHAT: Another software company emerges in Madison, WI. TrafficCast International, Inc. has developed and patented a web-based software platform to produce route-specific, real-time traffic information and travel time forecasts for emerging applications which deliver personalized, actionable traffic advice via Internet and wireless devices. Headquartered in Madison, WI, and with operations in Shanghai, China, this company has brought together a notable group of customers and partners, including Google, Yahoo!, Weather Central, ESRI, TeleAtlas, China Mobile and others. This Accelerate Madison program features highlights, best practices and live demonstrations by TrafficCast International:
• Value of wireless, location-based services, mobile communications
• Importance of coast-to-coast thinking and international opportunities
• Nurturing 3rd-party relationships to achieve market penetration and distribution
• Advantages of digital data and open architecture technology
• Operations and deployment in China.

APRIL 19, 2007 - "INNOVATION & GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP"
SPEAKER: Kristin Pugh - Director, HP Software Americas Marketing
WHAT: Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) is approaching its 70th year with a strong focus on innovation, industry leadership and global citizenship. From entrepreneurial origins in the "Addison Street garage" to current position as the #1 technology company in global Fortune 100, the journey has been one of innovation and change. This program will focus on innovation, areas of future growth in the information technology sector, global citizenship, and a sneak preview of the April 25th HP launch of "Business Technology" point of view. Speaker Kristin Pugh has lived and worked for HP in Asia, Europe and the U.S.

MARCH 15, 2007 - "Jellyfish: BIG Ideas from Madison are Disrupting the Status Quo."
SPEAKER: Brian Wiegand, CEO & Co-Founder, Jellyfish.com
WHAT: A serial Internet entrepreneur, advisor and investor shares big ideas on innovation, changing and disrupting the status quo, and successfully competing on both coasts (from Madison, WI) for talent, money and customers. For the last 10 years, Speaker Brian Wiegand has used the Internet as a platform to innovate and disrupt traditional mainstream markets, co-founding three companies: BizFilings (1996); NameProtect (1997); Jellyfish (2006). Jellyfish is pioneering a new, customer-centric form of online advertising and transforming the way you shop online.

FEBRUARY 15, 2007 - "IT SECURITY" (Malware Detection & Vulnerability Assessment in Middleware)
SPEAKERS: Somesh Jha, Ph.D., and Bart Miller, Ph.D.
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin - Madison
WHAT: Information technology security remains a top priority for businesses and consumers alike. Security vulnerabilities can mean lost revenue, lost productivity, and theft of personal and business data. Researchers at UW-Madison's Computer Sciences Department are producing some of the IT industry's most important discoveries and innovations to assess and protect our computers from intrusion and attack.

JANUARY 18, 2007 - "RICH MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS"
SPEAKER: Rimas Buinevicius, chairman and CEO of Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO)
WHAT: Video on the Internet is exploding in all forms, as evidenced by the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google. This Accelerate Madison program explores the emerging world of live and on-demand visual/audio communications combining elements of Web 2.0, webcasting, online content search and knowledge retrieval into a powerful new form of information exchange - transforming the way corporate, government and education enterprises capture and convey knowledge.