Bob Daly: Principal, RD Consulting Services
Bob Daly has been active in the software industry for the past 17 years and has always striven for excellence in all facets of his work. He is the Principal, RD Consulting Services, which addresses the needs of growing software firms using tailored workshops with emphasis on productive process improvement. He also does software process engineering due diligence analysis and detailed technical due diligence for high profile venture capital firms. He is an adjunct professor of Computer Science at Queens College in New York.

Before this, he was VP of Engineering of Cheyenne Software, where he was responsible for the product creation process – from requirements through code development; quality assurance, localization, delivery and product review coordination as well as technical support. The award winning, network essential product, ARCserve, was created, developed and popularized under Bob’s leadership. A graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey, Bob did his graduate work at C.W. Post.


Manish Chandra – CEO of Kaboodle
Manish Chandra is the founder and CEO of Kaboodle, an emerging leader in social media with a focus on shopping and e-commerce. Prior to Kaboodle, Manish was the VP of Worldwide Marketing at Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT), a company he joined after he catalyzed the acquisition of Mokume Software. Before Versant, Manish served in various roles at Versata including VP of Marketing and Product Strategy and was part of the executive team that grew the company from 8 to 600 and took Versata public in March 2000.

Manish also spent time in R&D and Product Management Roles at Sybase (NYSE:SY) and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) before joining Versata. Manish is a charter member of TiE and chairs the TiE Special Interest Group on Internet and New Media. He is an alumnus of the Young Entrepreneur’s Association. Manish holds an MBA from Haas Business School, MS in Computer Science from UT Austin and a Bachelor of Technology from IIT Kanpur, India.

Michael DeVries: Chief Executive Officer, Instill Corporation
Mike DeVries serves as chief executive officer of Instill, the leading provider of spend intelligence solutions to the food services industry.. He brings to Instill 25 years of enterprise software and services experience. Prior to joining Instill, DeVries co-founded Powershift Partners, a business strategy and start-up incubation firm focused on the On-Demand solutions market. DeVries also served as CEO for Clarus Systems, a provider of VOIP testing software and Wakesoft, an application infrastructure provider.

As Chief Marketing Officer for Versata, he defined the strategy and developed the partnerships that took the company from start-up to $57M in revenue over a four year period. DeVries spent 10 years at General Electric where he served in a variety of Information Technology and General Management positions. DeVries holds a BA in Economics from the UC Santa Barbara.

Rao Remala: Director, Microsoft Corporation
Nurturing PC progress from the very start, Rao was the first person to write code for and give initial shape to the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows program, which is used on a daily basis by millions globally.

In a 21-year period with this Goliath of the information technology world, he worked on a slew of the company's best known products - Basic, Cobol Compiler, Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, OLE 1.0, OLE 2.0, Office 95, and Office 97. He held a range of positions from individual contributor, to Group Manager, to Product Unit Manager and was an integral part of the team that virtually defined the personal computing industry.

Before Microsoft, Rao was working at DCM, Computer R&D center and then at Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL). Rao has a Master's degree in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. India and a Bachelor's degree from REC Warangal College with highest honors in the engineering program.