Smart Cities Investing – The Players Debate

Hill Branscomb is Co-Founder and Chairman of GeoNetwork and a successful inventor with over thirty years in the technology sector. His patent portfolio includes innovations in digital media, energy exploration, and geospatial mapping. In pursuit of better solutions for oil & gas exploration technology, Hill relocated to San Francisco from Houston in 1987 and founded Advanced Interaction, Inc. AI, Inc. was an early developer of smart video systems linked to geospatial data, delivered digitally. This technology is still in use today.

The digital media patent portfolio was successfully licensed to a wide range of companies, including all DVD manufacturers and producers for the navigational chapter search function. Hill leveraged this experience to become an active multimedia producer. Among the many projects using his new technologies, he began producing spatial video maps for cities, creating compelling multimedia experiences.

Hired by the Atlanta Olympic Committee, Hill produced a cutting-edge multimedia presentation for the 1996 Summer Olympics bid. Co-presenting with Mayor Andrew Young to the International Olympic Committee resulted in Atlanta’s successful bid. Other projects included work for ABC Sports for video mapping golf courses, and the deployment of the first digital photo booth with Nolan Bushnell. Hill’s innovative work was honored, along with a small group of global multimedia artists, at the grand opening of Japan’s Kanagawa Science Park. He was named a Top 100 Multimedia Producer in 1990 by Multimedia Magazine.

In the energy sector, he founded Climate Community Fund that holds an IP portfolio he developed related to carbon credits. He continues to pursue new technologies in the energy sector.

Currently a member of Fractus Partners, LLC. and a significant investor in Fractus.com which owns over 120 patents and applications worldwide on antenna technology. In addition to his current work with Geo.Network, he remains active in early stage technology, both as inventor and investor.

His current work as co-founder and chairman of Geo.Network focuses upon the foundational idea that owners and regulators of real estate have rights to manage the rules and behaviors of fixed, mobile, and autonomous devices within their boundaries. Not unlike how mineral rights are treated as a separate estate from the surface estate or air rights may be purchased, Geo.Network standardizes a new internet property, the GeoDomain, the new frontier of how digital rights apply and are monetized as part of title. The work is fondly described by a Geo.Network investor as the “land registry to The Matrix”.

Hill holds a BS degree in Engineering and Business from Vanderbilt University and continues to avidly surf his bucket list.

Hari Eppanapally as Vice President of the Financial Policy Council, and with over 25 years of experience as a financial services IT professional, Mr. Eppanapally has been involved in directing and managing global technology initiatives including strategic planning, architecture, design, development and deployment. He has worked over the years at several Wall Street investment banks like Merrill Lynch, Blackrock, Credit Suisse, Alliance Capital and BNY Mellon.

Mr. Eppanapally is the Chairman of the board for Quibble Genomics Institute, Inc. (QuibbleMD.com), focused to bring a revolution in consumer genomics, personalized medicine, and population health. Quibble specializes in human genome modeling, analysis and visualization by transforms the bio samples to visually appealing Genomic insights based on Unity3D gaming technology.

Mr. Eppanapally is the Chairman of the board for the CIC Group, Inc., a management consulting and advisory firm for mergers and acquisitions. He has a keen interest in investing and promoting education, healthcare and energy sectors.

Mr. Eppanapally was the Vice President of Concepts in Computing, Inc., an IT services company providing specialized services to major Wall Street firms and global investment banks.

Mr. Eppanapally is the founding Chairman of the board for Lead India 2020 Foundation, Inc. a social transformation organization promoted by the former President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam to educate, inspire and transform 640 Million youth of India into responsible citizens to develop the nation.

Mr. Eppanapally was the founding President of VT Seva, (Volunteering Together for Service), a global non-profit organization with over 100,000 volunteers dedicated to providing education to tribal and blind children, cancer screening for rural women and children, and disaster relief during floods/tsunamis and earth quakes.

Mr. Eppanapally received his B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India, and M.S. in Computer and Information Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey.

Joseph Forbes, Jr. is the Founder & CEO of Causam Energy Inc. and EnergyNet Inc.

Joe has created eight (8) successful technology companies in wireless communications, consulting, towers, hardware/software development, demand response, distributed energy, microgrids and transactive energy over the previous 25 years.

He is the inventor of over 120 granted and pending patents in energy, messaging, communications and financial settlements.

He has previously held positions with American Tower, World Access, Galaxy Engineering, Nextel, and BellSouth.

He has served as an officer in two public companies.

Joe holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University.

JiNan Glasgow George A Patent Attorney and former Patent Examiner with the US Patent & Trademark Office, JiNan Glasgow George is an IP practitioner with experience across a wide range of technology fields, serving clients in the US and internationally. She is a registered patent attorney with the North Carolina Bar and the USPTO and the founding partner of Neo IP (formerly Triangle Patents, PLLC) in Durham, NC, USA (www.neoipassets.com).

JiNan has worked with clients doing business or investing in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Europe, India, Jordan, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya for strategic patent analysis and the development of intellectual property rights including patents, trademarks, and copyrights for licensing and commercialization globally.

JiNan Glasgow George is also the CEO and co-founder of Magic Number, Inc., a business intelligence SaaS company that provides insights for investors and executives, serial entrepreneurs and innovation-based companies – giving vision ahead of market data using patent data and machine learning (www.magicnumberip.com).

She was founder & CEO of Neopatents, a patent research and analytics company that provided consulting services and software worldwide from the headquarters in Durham, North Carolina USA (www.neopatents.com). She is also the inventor of patent claims diagramming innovations (Patent Matrix software) and the co-inventor of proprietary patent mapping tools for analyzing patents across all technology fields – and using visuals that help communicate complex information about patent sectors.

Since 2007, JiNan has been working to leverage patent information to stimulate and accelerate innovation, particularly in developing economies. She introduced the Patent Free Zone model – applicable in most developing countries to leverage the world’s most cutting edge research & technology for commercial acceleration of in-country development, while providing an unparalleled opportunity to innovate in ways that are impossible in the US, Europe, Japan, and even China or India.

JiNan also founded the Eclipse IP Futures Conference in RTP/Raleigh-Durham, NC USA area – now in its 6th year. This invitation-only conference uniquely addresses the questions that entrepreneurs and investors have with patents as business assets, not simply legal issues. Patent strategy, competitive intelligence, valuation, and enforcement are key areas addressed by global experts in patents, technology & investment.

JiNan Glasgow George has built her career from engineering to patent law and investment by finding non-conventional approaches, streamlining the path, and creatively using resources to provide answers. She supports large companies and entrepreneurs alike in using intellectual property for creating economic value and sustainable development. She believes that everyone has the power to create – and her work globally has focused on transforming ideas into reality and creating positive commercial impact from them.

JiNan’s background includes software, mechanical & electrical engineering, energy, financial technology, polymer fiber science, biomedical devices, surgical/dental devices and applications, fiber optics, textiles, and pulp/paper science. Her educational background includes degrees in engineering, law and theology from NC State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University, respectively.

Ziad K. Abdelnour is a Wall Street Financier, Author, Philanthropist, Activist, Lobbyist, Oil & Gas Trader & President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc., a New York based private equity “family office” that focuses on originating, structuring, advising and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations, buildups, and growth capital financing in companies and projects based both in the US and emerging markets and the trading of key physical commodities.

Mr. Abdelnour is also Founder & Chairman of the Board of the Financial Policy Council ; a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization designed to give its select group of supporters the opportunity to have direct face-to-face dialogue with the nation’s quintessential powerbrokers and policymakers.

Since 1985, Mr. Abdelnour has been involved in over 125 transactions worth in aggregate over $10 billion in the investment banking, high yield bond and distressed debt markets and has been widely recognized for playing an integral role in those three key market sectors.

Mr. Abdelnour is an astute market player who also serves on the Advisory board of DPG Investments, a recognized premier multi strategy global merchant banking, alternative investment, management and advisory firm.

On a more personal level, Mr. Abdelnour, former President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America, is the author of “Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics” ; a best seller manuscript written for investors that need to navigate the troubled geopolitical waters of the post-crisis world and a prolific writer for 100+ entrepreneurial and financial publications advising and educating investors in private equity, hedge funds, crowdfunding, Sovereign Wealth Funds, fund-of-funds, angel networks, venture capital and family offices.

Mr. Abdelnour is also a regular speaker on Private Equity, Physical Commodities trading and Middle East geo-political analysis at industry conferences & TV outlets nationwide including but not limited to Fox News, Newsmax, etc…and a key “influencer” in his own right having a hard core constituency of over 2 million viewers having read his blog postings and analyses since January 2014.

Mr. Abdelnour holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut.

He was recently listed as one of the 500 Most Influential CEOs in the World.