Investors and Business Analysts from the US, UK, China, India, and New Zealand are attending the X|Media|Lab Auckland “Commercialising Ideas” event looking for the best local ideas to help bring to market.

X|Media|Lab is the internationally acclaimed digital media event, a meeting place uniquely designed to assist companies and people get their own digital media ideas successfully to market, through creative development, business matching, and direct access to world-class networks of digital media professionals.

X|Media|Lab Auckland “Commercialising Ideas” brings together some of the world’s best informed experts, VC’s, and business analysts, as well as some of New Zealand’s creative, business, and technology wizards to assist you succeed amids these turbulent times.

Never before has it been so important for digital media companies to have an acute understanding of the changes occurring in the priorities of investors, the behavior patterns of consumers; emerging business models; and how best to “commercialise” creative ideas locally, and across international marketplaces.

If you are developing digital media ideas across platforms, attend the Keynote Conference Day to hear how the experts are thinking and planning; and you can also apply to attend the Lab itself, where you can work with the International Mentors one-on-one to bring your own digital project ideas to market.

International Mentors include:

• Dale Herigstad - Four times Emmy Award Winner, and Winner of the inaugural Interactive Emmy Award; CCO, Schematic (Los Angeles)
• Adrian Sexton - Co-founder, New Medici, and formerly Digital Head of Lionsgate and Participant Media (Los Angeles)
• Tim Chang - Principal, Norwest Venture Partners (Silicon Valley)
• Susan Bonds - President and CEO, 42 Entertainment (Pasadena)
• Richard Cardran - Multi Emmy Award Winning Media Strategist & Technologist (Los Angeles)
• Juliette Powell - Media Entrepreneur, Author of “33 Million People In The Room” (New York)
• Vishal Gondal - Founder and CEO, India Games; one of India’s top 40 Entrepreneurs (Mumbai)
• Rajat Paharia - Founder and Chief Product Officer, Bunchball (San Francisco)
• Doug Whatley - Founder and CEO, BreakAway Games (Hunt Valley)
• Hugh Mason - Partner, Pembridge Partners LLP (London, Singapore)
• Parmesh Shahani - New Media, Venture Capital and Innovation, Mahindra & Mahindra, one of India’s largest conglomerates  (Mumbai)
• Andrew Hamilton - CEO, The ICEHOUSE (Auckland)
• Mike McGraw - Digital Media Pioneer, Managing Partner, Big Fuel (New York)
• Zhan Ye - President, GameVision; Strategic Investment Consultant for Giant Interactive, China’s leading online game developers (Beijing, Chicago)
• Nathan Torkington - Open Source Evangelist and Founder of Kiwi Foo Camp and NZ 2.0 (Auckland)
• Greg Suess & Trent J Blacket - ROAR (Los Angeles)
• Helen Baxter - Managing Directrix, Mohawk Media (Auckland)
• Vincent Heeringa - Director, HB Media Ltd (Auckland)
• Bonnie Graves - Co-Founder & President of New Medici (Los Angeles)

Meet some of the world’s best animation industry experts and a ‘who’s who’ of the China animation industry in Suzhou.

Following the great success of the first Suzhou Lab, we are proud to announce the second Suzhou “Wealth of Animation” in mid-April.

The first Lab brought together some of the world’s great creative talent and business executives together with a ‘who’s who’ of the China animation industries and this year’s event will undoubtedly do the same. It’s your chance to insert yourself right into the middle of the many opportunities for outsourcing, licensing, international distribution, and co-production in the world’s fastest growing animation industry.

The Keynote Conference Day focuses on four themes: Animation Industry Development; International Business Opportunities; Licensing and Merchandising IP; and Creativity and Technologies and Skills.

The Business Matching Day focuses on you.  It’s your opportunity to meet up with the animation industry experts, directly discuss your own animation ideas, network yourself right into the heart of the China animation industry, and explore business matching and partnerships with the other international participants at the Lab.

International Mentors include:

• John Stevenson - Director of ‘Kung Fu Panda’ (San Francisco, Los Angeles)
• Zareh Nalbandian - Founder and CEO of Animal Logic (‘Happy Feet’) (Sydney)
• Eric Rollman - President of Marvel Animation (Los Angeles)
• Yaosh Ho - Director of Worldwide Digital Media, MGM (Los Angeles)
• Mark Ollila - Director, Publishing, Games, Services, Nokia (Helsinki)
• Linda Steiner -Senior Vice President of Creative Affairs at Warner Bros Animation (Los Angeles)
• Eric Calderon - Founder and President at Wild Boar Media (Los Angeles)
• Heather Kenyon - Heather Kenyon and Associates; formerly Director of Development, Original Animation at Cartoon Network (Los Angeles)
• Ming Chan - Founder and CEO at The1stMovement (Pasadena, Denver)
• Si-Bum Kim - Founder and CEO at Characterline (Seoul)
• Antti Haikala - Co-Founder, Anima Vitae Studios (Helsinki)
• Dr Leon Xiao - Professor and Vice Dean, School of the Arts & Communication, Beijing Normal University (Beijing)
• Ashish S.K - CEO, BIG Animation India (Pune)
• Mike Cowap - Development Manager, Screen Australia (Melbourne)
• Asenath Wald - Head of 3D for the Oscar nominated film “Waltz with Bashir” (Jerusalem)
• Anand Gurnani - Co-founder and CEO, Animation Xpress (Mumbai)
• Tatiana Kober - President, Berjuba! Entertainment (Toronto, Los Angeles)

The city of Suzhou (1 hour north of Shanghai) is exemplary of the ‘New China’. It combines the allure and culture of traditional Chinese gardens and architecture with contemporary post-modern 5-star hotels, world-class infrastructure, and strong government support for the Creative Industries.

Following the great success of the first Suzhou Lab, we are proud to announce the second Suzhou “Wealth of Animation” in mid-April.

The first Lab brought together some of the world’s great creative talent and business executives together with a ‘who’s who’ of the China animation industries and this year’s event will undoubtedly do the same. It’s your chance to insert yourself right into the middle of the many opportunities for outsourcing, licensing, international distribution, and co-production in the world’s fastest growing animation industry.

The Keynote Conference Day focuses on four themes: Animation Industry Development; International Business Opportunities; Licensing and Merchandising IP; and Creativity and Technologies and Skills.

The Business Matching Day focuses on you. It’s your opportunity to meet up with the animation industry experts, directly discuss your own animation ideas, network yourself right into the heart of the China animation industry, and explore business matching and partnerships with the other international participants at the Lab.

Co-founder, Wikia.com; Chair, Advisory Board, Wikimedia Foundation (Sydney)

Angela Beesley is a groundbreaking Internet entrepreneur.

In 2004, Angela created Wikia.com with Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Wikia has since become the number one destination for community-created wiki sites, hosting 12,000 public wikis in 100 different languages and reaching 30 million people per month. Wikia hosts the world’s largest community-created wikis including encyclopedias of Star Wars, Star Trek, the Marvel Database Project, and guides to the world’s favourite online games including World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, and Guild Wars.

Angela is the Chair of the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation responsible for Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikinews, the Commons, and other Wikimedia projects. Prior to this, Angela was an elected Trustee of the first Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Angela also serves as a member of the Advisory Board of Ourmedia, the community for grassroots media producers.

Angela is a co-author of the chapter “Managing Wikis” in the book

“Wikis: Tools for information Work and Collaboration” which was published in 2006.

Chief Executive Officer, Widgetbox (San Francisco)

Will Price is the CEO of Widgetbox – helping people to connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Widgetbox’s community of tens of thousands of widgetmakers, and tens of millions of widget users, is growing daily.

Prior to joining Widgetbox, Will was a Managing Director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Will played a key role in the firm’s investments in Move Networks, Replay Solutions, Mulesource, Star Analytics, Hubpages, Widgetbox, Kwiry, Infopia and SlideRocket. Prior to joining Hummer Winblad, Will was a Senior Vice President with Pequot Ventures, where he focused on investments in information technology. Previously, Will served as CEO and COO of several software start-ups. He has also worked with the Boston Consulting Group, Infinity Financial Technology and Morgan Stanley. Will graduated from Harvard College and earned his M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University where he graduated at the top of his class.

Nic Newman is Future Media Controller, Journalism - co-ordinating the BBC’s plans for News, Sport, Weather and Local in the Future Media space. He is responsible for the delivery teams. Nic sits on the BBC’s Journalism Board and the Future Media and Technology Group Board.

Nic was one of the founding members of BBC News Online, Europe’s most visited news website. He was International Editor from 1997 to 2001 and since then has led the Technology and Product Development divisions. Nic also oversaw the launch of five World Service language sites in 1999.

Nic recently headed a team looking at the BBC’s strategy for search/find in the on-demand world. He is involved in other key BBC multi-media initiatives including BBCiPlayer, mobile and handheld initiatives, audio and video podcasting.

In a previous life, Nic was a radio presenter, a TV reporter and Executive Editor of BBC news and current affairs programmes including Newshour, Outlook and the World Today. Documentary credits including award winning documentaries following the Fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), South Africa 1991 and Guide to the Information Superhighway for BBC World Service (1995).

Meg Pickard usually describes herself as a creative geek. As Head of Communities and User Experience for guardian.co.uk, she is responsible for developing and managing existing and new social web strategy and participatory experiences for The Guardian and The Observer. Her background is in anthropology: she conducted ethnographic research into community participation and cultural identity first in Bolivia and subsequently online in the mid-nineties before eventually succumbing full-time to the Internet industry’s bright lights over a decade ago. Since then, she has conceived, shaped and developed hundreds of editorial, commercial and community projects for big companies (like AOL, where she was Consumer Experience Lead for Social Media products & initiatives) as well as through consulting roles with a range of small start-ups, global brands and charities. Meg’s particular areas of interest are community engagement and the emergence of new forms of collaborative and participatory media. She has been blogging since it started with a W, and lives in London and online.

Brian McCarthy was appointed Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director in December, 2008. Prior to that, he was Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax Media Limited from May, 2007 following the merger between Rural Press Limited and Fairfax Media Limited.

Mr. McCarthy has a broad experience in the media industry, particularly in relation to publishing, printing, and broadcasting.

Before the merger, he was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Rural Press Limited for 13 years. Mr. McCarthy commenced his media career in 1976 at newspapers in the Hunter Valley.

Mr. McCarthy has a Commerce degree from the University of Newcastle, and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Programme, Harvard University.

Jack Matthews
CEO, Fairfax Digital (Sydney)

Jack is the Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax Digital, the online division of Fairfax Media, Australia’s premier integrated media company. Fairfax Digital is responsible for Australia’s two leading online news sites, the smh.com.au and theage.com.au as well as leading classified sites in recruitment, automotive and real estate. Fairfax Digital sites attract over 10 million unique viewers per month.

Prior to his current position, Jack was COO and Representative Director of Jupiter Programming Company, a Tokyo based joint venture between Liberty Media and Sumitomo Corporation. Jupiter owns and operates 16 pay TV channels which reach over 24 million viewers.

Prior to Jupiter, Jack was CEO of the Premium Movie Partnership which creates and distributes Australia’s leading Pay TV movie channels, Showtime and Showtime Greats. Previous to that, Jack was CEO of TelstraSaturn, an integrated telephone, Pay TV and broadband company in New Zealand

Partner, Macleod Media (Sydney)

Louise McElvogue is a founding partner of Macleod Media a strategy, and implementation company working in the digital and media sectors. Clients have included Channel 4, BBC Worldwide, ITV, ABC-TV Australia, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, HIT Entertainment, BSkyB and Fremantle Media Enterprises.

Louise’s recent video work includes the UK’s Project Kangaroo, the soon to be launched video-on-demand product from ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide. Louise was part of Kangaroo’s launch strategy group which developed a product and commercial proposition for board approval and during development she ran teams in product design, editorial strategy, brand and marketing.

She previously played a similar role on Channel 4’s award-winning 4oD, taking the video product from concept to launch in nine months. 4oD won a raft of awards including the Grand Prix for excellence at the British Interactive Media Awards.

Louise’s experience includes five years as a member of the senior management team at London consultancy netdecisions/Agilisys, where she created a customer experience team which spanned the US, Asia and Europe and led a range of award-winning digital strategy and implementation projects. Her clients included McDonald’s, Hewlett Packard, theaa.com, Societe Generale, DBS Bank Singapore, Emap Media, NSPCC, British Gas, Marconi, Diageo and the world’s largest travel company TUI.

Louise started her career as a journalist and has worked in Australia, Europe and the US for outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Financial Times Media, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Encore, Wall St Journal TV, the BBC and CNN.

President, The One Club (New York)

Kevin Swanepoel is President of The One Club – the world’s foremost non-profit organization for the recognition and promotion of excellence in advertising.

Kevin has twenty-three years experience in traditional advertising. He has held the position of Chief Creative Officer in two advertising agencies, and was the Founder of Creative & Strategic Advertising.

From 1996 – 1997, Kevin was the Publishing Entertainment and New Media Manager at Apple Computer, where he worked closely with agencies and developers in the fledgling days of the “World Wide Web”.

In 1997 Kevin was appointed as Interactive Director at The One Club in New York. In the eleven years that he has been at the One Club he has built One Show Interactive into the top International Interactive Award Show worldwide.

Kevin is the author of ten books and CD-ROM’s featuring “Advertising’s Best Interactive and New Media”. These annuals have become the standard reference books for the new media industry.

Kevin has appeared on FOX and NBC as an authority on current advertising trends and has been published in AdWeek, Advertising Age, Creativity, AdHoc, Advertising and Design, Campaign Brief and Propaganda and Marketing.

Currently Kevin teaches an “Interactive Advertising” online course for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.