David Winer on the Evolution of the ABF

About two minutes

David Winer talks about some of the differences between the original Annual Business Forum, and the 11th Annual Business Forum for 2008.

Liz Pyle on the ABF Speakers

About three minutes

Liz Pyle, Chair of the ABF, talks about the speakers who will be presenting at the 2008 Annual Business Forum.

Jim Lansing on the ABF Audience

About two minutes

Jim Lansing has been associated with the Annual Business Forum for many years.

Here, he talks about who would benefit from attending the 2008 ABF.

Snapshots from the 2007 ABF

Event chair, Elizabeth Pyle, talking with CVG board member Kurt Krueger, Esq., and luncheon speaker Eugene T. Haley, CEO of Wilmington Pharmaceuticals.



Philippe Sommer, Director of Entrepreneurship at the Darden School of Business, introducing the keynote speaker, Frank Cappiello.

Innovation Workshops

SRI will present a three hour Innovation Workshop on Thursday. This workshop, The 5 Disciplines for Innovation, is based on the book by SRI President and CEO Dr. Curt Carlson and co-author William W. Wilmot, Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want, published in 2006. The book describes SRI's unique, disciplined approach to creating value. The workshop will include break-out teams, analysis of the team's work, and a guarantee that you will leave smiling because there is something for every entrepreneur and innovator to gain from this amazing workshop! 

(Separate workshop registration is required)

Business Week dubbed SRI "Spin-Off City" - an innovation engine that creates new spin-off businesses to capitalize on technology developed at SRI and move it into the marketplace. Working with top-tier investment and venture capital firms, SRI and its subsidiary Sarnoff Corporation have formed about two dozen new ventures. Through "nVention", its innovative model for engaging VCs at the earliest stages of the venture creation process, SRI nurtures technology and business concepts to create funding opportunities.

About Dr. Krishna Kodukula

Dr. Kodukula is the Executive Director of CADRE (The Center for Advanced Drug Research) at SRI-Shenandoah Valley, of SRI-Biosciences.

Dr. Kodukula brings exceptional skills to SRI from his long tenure in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. While at Sarnoff, an SRI subsidiary, he was the technical lead for a national program to develop technologies and strategies for reducing the drug discovery and development time during a national emergency.

Prior to working at Sarnoff, Dr. Kodukula helped launch Small Molecule Therapeutics, a drug discovery start-up in the Princeton area, and co-found Pyxis Technology Solutions, an IT tools developer, based in India and in the U.S. Previously, he was a senior research investigator at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute and a fellow at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, Hoffman-La Roche. Dr. Kodukula has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and botany from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar in India. He did postdoctoral work at the Indian Institute of Science, where he was a National Biotechnology Board Fellow. He is an author of many publications and several patent applications. Dr. Kodukula is a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Society for Biomolecular Sciences. He is also a member of the NIAID/NIH special panel on research and development for biodefense applications, and has served on review committees since 2004.

Source: SRI Press Release, 2006.

About SRI-SV in Harrisonburg

In December 2006, SRI announced the establishment of a new multi-divisional facility in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It is expected to become a self- sustaining, 100-person operation generating more than $20 million in revenues within 7 years. SRI-SV and its first group, the Center for Advanced Drug Research (CADRE), began operating on January 2, 2007.

SRI-SV has been made possible by Virginia commitments that total $22 million in funding ($15 million of which has been approved) for expenses over 4 to 7 years, plus a new facility to be built by the County of Rockingham. SRI-SV staff will be located at JMU temporarily, until the new building is ready to be occupied in 2009.

CADRE (The Center for Advanced Drug Research) will focus on the practical applications of proteomics-driven systems biology, a core of modern biosciences, to create new diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for infectious disease and biodefense.

Nancy Adelman and her team in the Policy Division in SRI’s Arlington office have initiated a research effort, also in collaboration with JMU, to establish an education research group at SRI-SV.


Source: SRI Alumni Association Newsletter, 2007

SRI TImeline

Dr Atalay to Speak at Friday Luncheon

Bulent Atalay, PhD, is a physics professor at Mary Washington University, an adjunct professor at UVA, and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

An accomplished artist in his own right, Dr. Atalay presents science through art, and art through science, and approaches the larger goal of achieving a synthesis of the two fields. He invokes the model of Leonardo – part-time artist, passionate scientist, consummate inventor. He is also much in demand as a speaker on art, archaeology, astrophysics and atomic physics.


His 2004 book, Math and the Mona Lisa, has been translated into numerous foreign languages.  Leonardo's Universe, co-authored with his former student Keith Wamsley, is scheduled for publication by National Geographic Books later this year.

2008 Annual Business Forum Announced

The 11th Annual CVG Business Forum will take place at the Darden School of Business on October 30 and 31, 2008. Please see the Virginia Annual Business Forums for registration and schedule information.

The keynote speaker, Krishna Kodukula, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Drug Research (CADRE), an SRI International Biosciences Division located in Harrisonburg, VIrginia.

Dr. Kodukula will be speaking on Innovation: Nature  or Nurture?

Snapshots from the 2006 Business Forum

Some of the participants in the CVG 2006 Annual Business Forum

In the center, keynote speaker Steven Burke talks with CVG Board members and others.




Many thanks to Clinton Showalter, of Beyond Silver, for most of these photographs.

Podcasts from the 9th Annual Business Forum

If you'd like to hear what participants in the 2006 ABF had to say during the event, here are half a dozen short podcasts. (Cross-posted from BGNonline. They are also available in the November archives of this blog).

9th Annual Business Forum, held in November, 2006:

Several folks shared their thoughts on the CVG 9th Annual Business Forum as it was taking place on November 9 and 10th at the UVA Darden School of Business in Charlottesville.


(About 2 minutes)
Sherwood Bowditch, of the Robins School of Business, on the Entrepreneur's Boot Camp presented by the Hutchinson Law Group.


(About 2 minutes)
Sherwood Bowditch, on the afternoon panel discussions of collaboration behind the development of a business plan and networking in starting a new business.


(About a minute)
Entrepreneur Bob Amacher, founder of Four Walls Media, on what he is looking for in the Annual Business Forum.


(About a minute)
Collaborative strategies panelist Mark Wasilko, of AES Corporation.


(About a Minute)
Clinton Showalter, of Beyond Silver, on capturing images of the 9th Annual CVG Business Forum.


(about two minutes)
Entrepreneur Mason Gates, President of InternDirect, on his recent expansion and his engagement with this community of entrepreneurs.

This special edition of The BGN Entrepreneur's Minute is made possible by the generous support of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, business forum, CVG, collaboration, event podcasts

About Jim Lansing

Jim Lansing has been an integral part of every Annual Business Forum since shortly after he arrived in Charlottesville nearly ten years ago. As the volunteer Executive Director of the Charlottesville Venture Group for three years, he was always the charming voice of calm and cooperation. His unique blend of encouragement for and leadership of the many volunteers who create the event each year has been essential to the success of the Business Forums.

An active angel investor, and advisor to start-up companies, Jim has been involved in numerous acquisitions, software licensing, and executive management positions. He developed the original CVG LiveFire! program, which brought aspiring entrepreneurs together for presentations to panels of angel investors. (Pictures from a 2006 LiveFire!) His active involvement with CVG included helping the Boards of Directors of both CVG and VPTC come together for joint endeavors during 2007.
(Jim between Liz Pyle and then-president of VPTC, Gary Henry, below)



Jim was recognized for his leadership in the Charlottesville technology and entrepreneurial community by the Virginia Piedmont Technology Council (VPTC), receiving the Navigator Award in 2006. (See BGNonline for more)

Jim is a Managing Director of Virginia Annual Business Forums LLC, which is managing the CVG Annual Business Forum in 2008.

About Elizabeth Pyle

Liz Pyle, the Co-Chair (with David Winer) of the 11th Annual Business Forum, has been actively involved in some aspect of the CVG Business Forums for nearly five years. She chaired the very active CVG Business Plan Review Committee prior to becoming the President of the CVG Board of Directors.
(The handoff of the gavel, from Deb McMahon to Liz, above)

Liz co-chaired the extremely successful 9th and 10th Annual Business Forums, both of which were held at Darden School of Business. She and her co-chair, Deb McMahon, (below, from 2007 post) grew the Business Forum to an annual attendance of nearly 400 people during those that time.



Last year, she also managed the workshops, which brought together panelists from UVA and experienced entrepreneurs in the Charlottesville area. Liz was recognized for her exceptional accomplishment by her colleagues in the Charlottesville entrepreneurial and technology community in 2008. She received the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council People's Choice Navigator Award for significant leadership in the regional business community.


(Liz with Jim Lansing, above))

Liz Pyle is the founder and president of Pyle & Associates, a Charlottesville are consulting firm specializing in interim executive assignments to bring the right mix of expertise needed during a challenging time for a company. 

About Deb McMahon, PhD

Deb McMahon co-chaired the 2006 and 2007 CVG Annual Business Forums with Liz Pyle.

(Deb talking with Jim Lansing at the 2006 ABF, below)



She was President of the CVG Board of Directors in 2005 and 2006, and received the CVG Angel Award for volunteers in 2006. (See BGNonline for more)

Deb is the President and CEO of Scitent (Formerly CardioConcepts), which helps organizations bring their educational content to the internet in a compelling, efficient, and cost-effective manner.

About David S. Winer

Along with David Martin (Mosaic Technologies, M-CAM), David Winer was one of the founders of the Charlottesville Venture Group. At the suggestion of Wendell Dunn (of the Batten Institute) they launched the very first Annual Business Forum in 1998. He returns this year as Co-Chair of the event with Liz Pyle.

Remembering the very first meeting of the group that was to become CVG, David said that they had sent email to area people they thought might be interested. Unbeknownst to them, an email server was down, so they expected about 15 people to attend. A few hours before that initial meeting, another 50 or so email messages finally arrived. Co-founder David Martin and others were frantically jerry-rigging a TV monitor in the halls of the Mosaic Technology offices so that the additional people could be accommodated somehow. About 70 people attended that first meeting, initiating an entrepreneurial group that swelled to about 300 members.

In addition to the ABF, David had a hand in designing and implementing many of the programs long associated with CVG. The monthly educational programs now held at Darden (initially held at various locations including the Ice Park and the Omni), the Entrepreneur's Spotlight, which became LiveFire! in the hands of Jim Lansing and Liz Pyle, the Annual Dinner Dance, which has since been discontinued. He also came up with the very first Golden Angel Award, presented to Wendell Dunn for initiating the ABF. (Recent recipients include Deb McMahon and Jim Lansing)

“While David Martin and I have been publicly acknowledged as the co-founders”, said Winer, “I think of Colleen Martin in the same category. She was there from the beginning and was the operational backbone for the organization for years before publicly taking on the role of the first volunteer Executive Director.”

David is currently an Associate of The Bridge, Ltd. (Charlottesville, VA) and working as a marketing consultant and executive coach with companies in Virginia, Colorado, New Jersey and Wisconsin.