Vlad Dabija, Ph.D. - Managing Director
Vlad is a business strategist, scientist, entrepreneur, and technology investor. He has led technology teams and investments in more than a dozen countries in North America, Asia and Europe. During his career, Vlad was a founder and the CEO of GreenBorder Technologies, a company acquired by Google to become the foundation of the Chrome browser, and a co-founder and managing partner of IgniteIP, a technology investment and commercialization private equity firm. Vlad was also Vice President of the Innovation Group at Xinova and Director of Investment Strategy at Intellectual Ventures, as well as a Partner at CMEA Ventures. His many years of technology experience include software architecture and management positions at Sun Microsystems and Ashton Tate Corporation, as well as board director, advisor and consultant with over 40 companies and venture capital firms on business strategy and technology.
Vlad holds a Ph.D. in computer science (artificial intelligence) from Stanford University, an MBA with Distinction from The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Palmer Scholar, and a Diplomat Engineer degree in computer engineering, as Valedictorian, from the Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest, Romania. Vlad was a teaching fellow for advanced artificial intelligence courses at Stanford University, and associate professor for computer programming at the Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest, Romania. He was a visiting researcher at the Institute for Robotics, Polytechnic Institute (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, and the Central Research Laboratory of Mitsubishi Electric Corp. in Amagasaki, Japan, as well as a Kauffman Fellow in San Francisco, CA.
Paul Levins - Business Development
Paul has an international career in senior executive roles for corporations, government, not for profits and startups.
He is a Co-Founder of Xinova, where he was Head of Partnerships, developing business models, growing revenues and leading a global team, and he was later Chief Strategy Officer.
Previously he was Executive Vice President at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an organisation tasked with co-ordinating the security and stability of the global Internet. He helped grow the head office in Los Angeles and then established ICANN's Washington DC office where he was a key architect of the "Affirmation of Commitments”, an internationally recognized accountability agreement negotiated between ICANN, global stakeholders, the US Congress and the Executive Branch.
Before ICANN, Paul was General Manager, Operations and Corporate Affairs at Bilfinger Berger Australia, a German owned company in the infrastructure and services sector. Prior to that he managed Corporate Affairs for Telstra, a major regional telecommunications and ISP headquartered in Australia.
He also has substantial public sector policy experience. He was a Chief of Staff to Australian Federal and State Government Ministers in portfolios including Higher Education where he helped devise Australia’s student income support system; in Health where he was involved in major reform strategies and investments, and many other achievements in Housing, Water, and Infrastructure. In his early career he worked in Human Rights where he implemented Australia’s Privacy Act, in Public Education and in youth policy.
Paul is a Board Member of the ANZAC Medical Research Institute, an Honorary Associate at the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney, a Global Ambassador for Business Events, Sydney, Australia, a former Director of auDA (Australia’s country code top level domain), and he holds a Bachelor of Arts from Macquarie University, in Education, History and English.