May 2009 Entrepreneurs Forum:

Crowdsourcing Business

Ultra Light Startups, a group of entrepreneurs and like-minded individuals who meet monthly to discuss trends, ideas, and models that help startups launch quicker and cheaper, is co-hosting a discussion on crowdsourcing with Boston University's MBA Leadership Program. The May 2009 Entrepreneurs Forum: Crowdsourcing panel consists of founders who've started some of today's most disruptive crowdsourced startups, an open source expert, and venture capitalist.

Room is limited, so please register here.

Panel Line-up:

• Local Motors is working on a unique manufacturing system that will design, manufacture, and bring to market innovative, safer, more functional, lightweight, efficient cars through a revolutionary, local assembly and retail experience. They're able to get to a stage in production that usually costs a company like General Motors hundreds of millions of dollars for under $100k.
• uTest crowdsources on demand software, application, and quality assurance testing through an international community of professional software engineers.
• Acquia provides commercial support for open source Drupal, a leading web Content Management System.
• Venture Capitalist: TBD

• What is crowdsourcing and how similar is it to open source?
• What are the benefits of crowdsourcing?
• What companies are using the model? How are they saving money? What results are they achieving?
• What is decentralize intelligence and how can it improve businesses?
• Why is crowdsourcing a disruptive business model? How are they changing the competitive landscape? What trends are emerging and how can these be leveraged to create more efficient systems?
• How do feedback loops relate to crowdsourcing? Will this model help produce better products and services?
• What are the advantages/disadvantages?
• Can crowdsourcing help save the automotive and financial industries?
• What are the most effective ways to build communities?
• How can companies utilize crowdsourcing to develop new products?
• What are the reasons behind uTest, Local Motors, and Acquia/Drupal's success?
• How can crowdsourcing be used to get to market quicker?
• How can crowdsourcing enhance quality assurance?

• Alex Lindahl, Boston Organizer of Ultra Light Startups

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Doron Reuveni, Co-Founder of uTest [Crowdsourced Software/Application Testing]
• John B. Rogers, Jr., CEO & Co-Founder of Local Motors [New American car company, crowdsourced car design]
• Jay Batson, Co-Founder of Acquia [Open Source Drupal]
• Venture Capitalist: TBD

Event Info: Date May 5th, 2009 Time 6:30PM - 9:00PM Location Boston University Address TBC

Panelist and Moderator Bios:

John B. Rogers, Jr.
John Rogers is helping to build a game-changing American car company. Jay is relentlessly passionate about cars and the industry which surrounds them. Previously, Jay served for 6 years in the United States Marine Corps, where he was an Infantry Company Commander. He has worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Co., as an investment analyst at Ewing & Partners, and at a startup medical device company in the People's Republic of China. Jay serves as the Chief Investment Officer and director of the RBR Foundation, a philanthropic foundation focused on education and healthcare. He is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).

Doron Reuveni
Doron Reuveni co-founded uTest in 2007 and, since its inception, the company has provided software testing and usability services to companies from around the globe. Doron is a recognized expert in web-based technologies, software QA methodologies, as well as start-up formation and entrepreneurship.

Prior to uTest, Doron was the SVP of Technology at Enigma, delivering large scale software implementations, while effectively managing a global team of professional software engineers, QA testers and project managers. Doron has more than 20 years of experience in software and solution development, delivering software solutions to Fortune 500 companies as well as many innovative startups.

Jay Batson
Acquia is the second technology company Jay Batson has (co-)founded, and is also his second commercial open-source effort (the previous having been Pingtel, which was acquired by Bluesocket in 2007.) Jay's work passion is to build great companies that build things that users are passionately happy with. When not obsessing about products, he builds miles on his custom Serotta, is a rabid pro cycling fan (getting his news at VeloNews - a Drupal site!), and spends time under the headphones listening to and spinning all styles of house and trance music.

Alex Lindahl
Alex joined Acquia as their first sales representative after graduating from Boston College in 2008 and is obsessed with everything and anything that has to do with startups, tech, and entrepreneurship. While at school, Alex started and ran a painting company during the summer seasons, co-founded College Mogul, a blog that provides resources for first time entrepreneurs, and recently became the organizer for the Boston chapter of Ultra Light Startups.