How Innovation Happens In Silicon Valley 

George Osborne MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver a keynote address. We will then host an interactive panel discussion to consider why the Silicon Valley has been so successful, and what lessons can be learned for the UK.

The panellists are:

Reid Hoffman, Serial Entrepreneur and Founder of LinkedIn; James Slavet, Partner, Greylock Venture Capital and Megan Smith, Vice President, New Business Development at Google Inc & board member of MIT. Jonathan Kestenbaum, Chief Executive of NESTA will chair the discussion. The panelists represent a small exemplar of the ‘ecology’ of innovation at play – the entrepreneur, the venture capitalist and the university/industry collaborator.

Registration is from 5.00pm with presentations starting promptly at 5.30pm

Biographies:  

Reid Hoffman - Angel Investor, Serial Entrepreneur and Founder, LinkedIn
Reid Hoffman is an entrepreneur and investor. He has co-founded two companies, Socialnet and Linkedin. He has invested in a number of companies - including Facebook, Digg, Wikia, and SixApart and is on the Board of Mozilla, and Kiva. 

James Slavet - General Partner, Greylock
James Slavet is a partner at Greylock, a leading venture capital firm, where he advises Greylock portfolio companies including Digg, Farecast, Kongregate, LinkedIn, Oodle, and Revision3. He previously worked in senior operating roles at Yahoo!, and within several startup companies. Board member: Kongregate, Revision3; Board observer: LinkedIn, Digg, Farecast, Oodle.

Megan Smith - Vice President, New Business Development, Google Inc.
Megan joined Google in mid 2003 and is currently the Vice President of New Business Development. Prior to that she was the CEO/COO of PlanetOut, Inc. from 1996-2001. Smith leads Google's New Business Development team which manages early-stage partnerships, explorations and technology licensing. Smith joined Google in June 2003, led several of Google's acquisitions including Keyhole (Google Earth), Where2Tech (GoogleMaps), Picasa and others, and co-led Google's early work with publishers for BookSearch site.