Speakers and Chairs Bios

Eight-time entrepreneur-turned-educator Steve Blank is credited with launching the Lean Startup movement. He’s changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught; how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate.
 
Steve is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, The Startup Owner’s Manual --  and his May 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story defined the Lean Startup movement.
 
Recognized as a thought leader on startups and innovation, Steve was named one of the Thinkers50 top management thinkers and recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of 12 Masters of Innovation.
 
He teaches his Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and NYU, among others; and created the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps that is now the standard for science commercialization in the U.S.  His Hacking for Defense class at Stanford is revolutionizing how the U.S. defense and intelligence community deploys innovation with speed and urgency. The course has been adopted by universities across the U.S., and has a series of sister classes including Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Impact and Hacking for Energy.
 
A prolific writer and speaker, Steve blogs at www.steveblank.com. His articles regularly appear in Forbes, Fortune, The Atlantic and Huffington Post.