Swami Venkataramani

Swami has been creating websites since 1997. He was a Senior Software Engineer at Yammer, and cofounder and UX Developer at Zleek (an interactive photo sharing service) that was sold to a medical imaging company. During his Masters program in Computer Science at Arizona State University, he created Holding Hands, an interactive mobile application to assist individuals who are blind, which won the 3rd place award in the the National Finals of the 2004 Microsoft Imagine Cup Software Design competition. Prior to moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, he lived in Phoenix, Arizona, where he served for 3 years as the Young Adult Representative of the Sathya Sai Baba Organization, Region 9 (Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico), to organize and oversee local community service activities.

Alex Southern

Alex has been involved in the Internet space for 10 years, working with startups and established businesses on their Marketing and Operational strategies. He was a Marketing Executive at Visalus Sciences, a technology-driven Nutrition startup that markets supplements, energy drinks and weight management products. The company’s Body by Vi Challenge has donated nearly one million meals to children and families in need. Prior, he served as Associate Editor of DBusiness, a leading business publication, where he reported on emerging detroit startups and technology-based companies. He currently resides in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he is active in community outreach at his church, and via Grow Detroit--a community he founded to foster Southeast Michigan's startup and technology community.

Stephen Sclafani

Stephen has spent the last 10 years building and breaking web applications for both early stage startups and established companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter. As a security researcher he has published multiple articles on new techniques in penetration testing. Stephen studied Computer Science and Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Steve Commisso

Steve has been crafting applications and building websites since 1995, optimizing user experiences at companies like Go Daddy, American Express, Mayo Clinic, and M & T Bank. He was also the founder of Zleek, a media-sharing application that was 2nd runner up in the ComponentArt 2009 Summer Silverlight Coding Competition. He enjoys squeezing optimal performance out of every last line of code, winning top finisher honors in the MIX09 10K Smart Coding Challenge.