Judges

Judges evaluate submissions based on a number of criteria such as difficulty of challenge, results produced, and originality, and scores are tabulated to select each category winner.

The Alliance was honored to have the participation from the following high-profile panel of judges for the 2009 Itanium Innovation Awards.

Joe B. Alexander, strategy and technology consultant; educator

Alexander is an IT industry veteran and expert in large-scale computing applications with more than 20 years of global experience in software and hardware product management and strategic planning for several product lines supporting enterprise, departmental, and high-performance computing. His experience includes 10 years in pre- and post-sales engineering with IT clients and more than five years in the Linux and open source software ecosystem for the enterprise market, including work with the Alliance, OSDL and the Linux Foundation. In addition, Alexander has spent more than 15 years training business leaders as a graduate school educator.

Ken Cayton, president, Systematic Market Analysis

Ken Cayton leads primary research, consulting and multi-client studies for Systematic Market Analysis. Cayton’s areas of expertise include product management, business and product strategy, product marketing and extensive market research through more than 30 years of industry experience. Prior to founding Systematic Market Analysis, Cayton was most recently with IDC as research manager in the enterprise platform group. Prior to IDC he served with Intel’s digital enterprise group for 11 years, with responsibilities including managing market research, strategic market analysis, platform marketing management, long-range planning and OEM account management, along with development and management of product roadmaps, pricing and competitive analysis.

Jon Erickson, editor in chief, Dr. Dobb's

Jonathan Erickson has been Dr. Dobb's editor-in-chief since 1988. Before joining Dr. Dobb’s, Jonathan was senior west-coast editor for BYTE and senior editor for Osborne/McGraw-Hill books. He is the author of ten books, ranging from graphics programming to organic gardening.

Dr. Barry Hieb, chief scientist, Global Patent Identifiers

Dr. Hieb is chief scientist for Global Patient Identifiers Inc. Prior to that he was a research director in the Gartner Healthcare Industry Research and Advisory Service for 10 years. He is a physician with over 30 years’ experience in medical informatics. Previously, Dr. Hieb served as product planning manager for the Sunquest clinical data repository and earlier held a similar position with First Data Corporation. He also served as a chief architect of healthcare solutions in the Healthcare Marketing Group of Digital Equipment Corp. Dr. Hieb’s expertise includes the computer-based patient record as well as numerous supporting applications and technologies such as enterprise master person indexes, controlled medical vocabularies, clinical decision support systems, medical speech & natural language processing, and healthcare information architectures. Dr Hieb received his BA from Bethel College in Newton, Kansas and his Medical Degree and Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Washington University in Saint Louis. 
 

Sverre Jarp, chief technology officer, CERN openlab

Sverre Jarp is active in the CERN openlab, a joint collaboration with leading industrial partners in order to assess cutting-edge information technology for the Large Hadron Collider’s Computing Grid.  He has been working in computing at CERN for well over 30 years and has held various managerial and technical positions promoting advanced but cost-effective computing solutions for the Laboratory.  In 2001-02 he spent a sabbatical year in HP Labs (Palo Alto, USA). Inside openlab, his main focus is currently compilers and platform optimization as well as virtualization and Grid middleware. Jarp holds a degree in Theoretical Physics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

Dr. Rinaldo Jose, president and co-founder, Lakeway Technologies

Dr. Jose has developed software and managed software teams for more than 15 years. He has a history of leading change and building organizational momentum by translating an organization's greater goals into terms that executive, engineering and product management teams can act upon. He has led turnarounds for multiple engineering organizations and is skilled at defining and establishing processes to yield consistent and predictable execution. As the driving force behind Lakeway Frontier, Rinaldo brings business intelligence to project management. Rinaldo holds a B.S. from U.C. Berkeley and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where his research focused on optimally coordinating teams within organizations using price theory.

George McQuilken, co-founder, eCoast Angels Investment Network

George McQuilken is a founding member of the eCoast Angels Network, a group of private investors backing early-stage companies. McQuilken was founding CEO of four companies including RSA Security. As Editor of the IBM Systems Journal, he published many of the seminal papers on software management, measurement, security, and quality. He was a project leader at IBM’s Cambridge Scientific Center working on virtual machines and networking. He is a graduate of MIT and member of the IEEE and the ACM.

Michelle “Mickey” Pierce, senior product manager, Mainframe Migration Alliance, Microsoft

Michelle “Mickey” Pierce has spent over 20 years in operations and applications software.  Mickey currently runs the Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA) at Microsoft.  The goal of the MMA is to build and promote an ecosystem of application and tools providers as well as systems integrators who have specific expertise in both legacy systems and the Windows platform.  Prior to joining Microsoft, Mickey spent 12 years in the IBM vendor ecosystem in various capacities within sales and marketing. Additionally she was part of the IPO team at Siebel Systems.

Andrew Razeghi, lecturer, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Andrew Razeghi is a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University where he teaches coursework on innovation. He is also a best-selling author, popular speaker, and leading expert on corporate creativity and innovation. His most-recent book, THE RIDDLE: Where Ideas Come From and How to Have Better Ones (Jossey-Bass/Wiley) was chosen by FAST COMPANY magazine as one of its “Smart Books of the Year”.

Clay Ryder, president, The Sageza Group

Since he co-founded Sageza in 2001, Ryder has been a key contributor in defining Sageza's business direction. His perspectives on business development, marketing, and technology issues are based on twenty years of practical experience and industry observation. Prior to founding The Sageza Group, Ryder was vice president and chief analyst at Zona Research, the first market research firm to specifically identify and quantify the commercial applicability of the Internet. Ryder is a frequent contributor to IT-focused radio and television programs including Silicon Valley Business, Silicon Spin, Tech TV, and C/NET. Ryder is also a well-known industry speaker and has been published in Computerworld, VAR Business, HP World, and other industry publications.

Dr. Mark K. Smith, executive director, Universal Parallel Computing Research Center, and managing director, Gelato Federation

Mark K. Smith has broad experience in working with the global academic research community and Fortune 500 hardware and software companies. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center and as the Managing Director of the Gelato Federation, an Itanium advocacy group, both based at the University of Illinois. Smith’s current research interests include data center power management and sustainable computing. He is leading an Illinois research initiative to address data center energy efficiency and is actively involved with several energy conservation campus initiatives. Smith holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and an MBA from the University of Illinois.

Michael Vizard, director of strategic content, Ziff-Davis Enterprise

Michael Vizard is director of strategic content for Ziff-Davis Enterprise and writes columns and blog posts for eWEEK, Baseline and Channel Insider. Prior to his current role, Vizard served as the editorial director and senior vice president, setting the strategic editorial direction for the Enterprise Group at Ziff Davis, which includes eWEEK, Baseline, CIO Insight, The Channel Insider, Publish and Microsoft Watch. Vizard has served as the Editor in Chief of CMP Media’s Computer Resellers News, in addition to being Editor in Chief at International Data Group’s InfoWorld. Vizard has also had extensive editorial management experience over an 18-year career that has included management positions with PC Week, Computerworld, Digital Review and Electronic Buyers’ News.