Adam Zawel is the head of the Israel Industry 4.0 Community (“II4”). The intention of the II4 Community is to gather top Israeli innovators and financers into a thriving community, together with passionate industry leaders worldwide, to collaborate online and offline, uniting the sector and enhancing the ecosystem. Adam Zawel is also the Vice President of Strategy with Leader Networks, a research and consulting firm that helps companies use digital and social technologies to gain competitive advantage.  Previously, Mr. Zawel was Director of Community at Palladium Group, where he worked with Drs. Kaplan and Norton (Balanced Scorecard creators) to launch a world-class community that harnessed the collective wisdom of the top strategy executives in the world.

Adrian is an experienced founder, operator, engineer and investor in the industrial technology sector. He is a Managing Director at Mercury and leads the Intelligent Manufacturing practice at Mercury Fund. Mercury Fund is an early-stage venture capital firm. With $300 million under management, Mercury focuses on entrepreneurs and technology innovation originating in the U.S. Midcontinent. The Mercury investment themes target SaaS, Cloud, and Data Science/AI platforms that make the industrial ecosystems of Middle America more competitive and efficient.

Prior to joining Mercury, Fortino was the Managing Director of Detroit Innovate, a seed-stage investment fund targeting seed investments in enabling technologies in healthcare, transportation and industrial applications.  During this time, Fortino was also the Managing Director of the First Step Fund, a micro-investment, industry agnostic fund focused on seed-stage companies in Southeast Michigan.

Fortino also co-founded three software companies: Sidecar (acq. by GM), ShepherdIS, and FlockTAG. Prior to his entrepreneurial experience, Fortino was the Manager of Powertrain Development Group at Ricardo, a global engineering consultancy focusing on the automotive, cleantech, military and industrial sectors.

Adrian holds a BSE in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA with High Distinction from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan

An entrepreneur, Amit Dror Co-Founder and CSO of Nano Dimension, the world’s leading additive electronics provider. Since 2014 to 2020 was CEO of the Nano Dimension.

Started in the Telecoms industry and spent a decade at ECI and Comverse, before co-founding his first start-up, Eternegy Ltd in 2010, which focused on solar power and environmentally friendly electricity generation.

Co-founded the Milk & Honey Whiskey Distillery. Israel’s first ever whisky distillery, the company produces each whisky to the highest standards. It was soon recognized by Forbes and nominated as one to try.

It was not long before Amit recognized a further niche in the marketplace - this time with additive electronics, and he co-founded Nano Dimension in 2012. Amit currently serves as Nano Dimension’s CEO.

Recognized as the world’s leading additive electronics provider, and a company that is disrupting, reshaping and defining the future of how cognitive, connected electronic products are made.

Amit is keenly aware that the Nano Dimension technology will soon impact the future of every industry from medical devices and telecommunications to the defense, aerospace and automotive industries, and will heavily influence our personal futures in years to come.

Nano Dimension has an unmatched product portfolio including the unrivalled and award-winning DragonFly™ Pro System for Precision Additive Manufacturing of Printed Electronics. “This machine essentially prints simultaneously Nano-metal and complex-polymer which has never been done before. This means that electronics can be produced more quickly and securely in-house, with lower costs and disruptive designs than ever before.”

“We are enabling the electronics industry to catch up with the fast-paced world of today - and print electronics immediately and in-house. This makes our solution a cost-effective, highly efficient and accessible way to produce the much-needed electronics proliferating through our lives today - in smaller sizes and even different shapes.”

Amit Harel is a Partner and the Co-leader of Deloitte Catalyst | Tel Aviv, where he leads Deloitte Catalyst’s services to multinational corporates in Israel. Amit works to accelerate innovation and growth with the world’s most disruptive startups and largest enterprises, delivering end-to-end solutions that transform how businesses grow into the world of tomorrow. 

Ara Topouzian serves as Executive Director of the Michigan Venture Capital Association.  In his leadership role at MVCA, Topouzian advocates for Michigan’s entrepreneurial and venture investor community with legislative and government officials and promotes Michigan venture investment opportunities to regional and national markets.  He also supports membership growth, fundraising, guides program development and sets strategic direction for the organization.

Experience

A strategic leader experienced in both private and public industry sectors, Ara is accomplished in the field of economic development for municipalities. He has a successful track record in attracting international corporations as well as retaining small and large businesses to the area. He is a visionary who excels in the creation and implementation of organizational structure and processes. Ara is a relationship builder who astutely cultivates and utilizes relationships to create win-win situations for all involved parties. His proven abilities in marketing, leadership and operations have made him a creative thinker and problem solver who consistently delivers business growth and development for entities represented. He is also skilled in association management and membership development. To that end, he has presented, moderated and facilitated small and large groups, including service organizations, colleges, libraries, associations and more.

For more than six years, Topouzian was the City of Novi Economic Development Director, responsible for marketing to- and communicating with 2,000-plus large and small businesses by providing them with important local, regional, state and federal resources. During his tenure in Novi, Topouzian was responsible for business attraction projects valued in excess of $100 million in investment, as well as directing the city’s current economic development goals and objectives in both attraction and retention efforts.

For six years, Topouzian was the President and CEO of the Troy Chamber of Commerce, responsible for overseeing one of Oakland County's strongest Chambers with more than 650 members, as well as expanding the Chamber’s role as a champion for small and large businesses. he led Troy Chamber into financial prosperity as well as increased membership and retention as well as elevate the quality of programs and events for its membership.

Notable Accomplishments

Council Member, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (2018-Present)

Board Member, Michigan Society of Association Executives (2017-Present)

Board Chair, Michigan Economic Developers Association (2014)

Board Chair, Creative Many Michigan (2018-2019)

Board Member, Executive Committee, Troy Community Foundation (2016-2019)

President/CEO, Troy Chamber of Commerce (2013-2019)

Economic Development Director, City of Novi (2009-2013)

President, Farmington/Farmington Hills Chamber of Commerce (2000-2009)

Kresge Artist Fellow of Performing Arts (2012)

Mike Conboy Economic Development Award, MEDA (2013)

Professional Education

Wayne State University, Bachelor of Arts – Journalism (1993)

Trinity of Management -  Sirolli Institute (Small Business mentorship) (2011)

Ariel Rosenfeld is the CEO of 3d Signals. He previously served as SVP at M-Systems, a world leader in the flash data storage market, where he grew the revenue of the DiskOnKey business unit from single to triple digit (in $M) in 3 years. After M-Systems, Mr. Rosenfeld developed algorithms for automated transactions in the stock market. He holds a B.Sc. in Industrial and Management engineering from Tel-Aviv University. Mr. Rosenfeld embraces challenges and as such, he is a competitive ultra-marathon runner that participates and wins races around the world.  

Bill Pescatello is the managing partner at Evolv Ventures,  a $100m venture fund backed by Kraft Heinz.  Bill brings over 13 years of venture experience, where he helped build multiple top performing funds for both strategic and purely financial funds.

Bill was a partner at the Chicago based seed fund Lightbank. While at Lightbank, Bill led and/or served on the boards of Udemy, Fooda, Locu, Perblue, Ionic, Hireology, CoffeeMeetsBagel, Ovia Health, and Snaptravel.

Prior to Lightbank, Bill was a founding member of the Peacock Equity Fund for NBCUniversal, where he sat on the boards of Greystipe, Ramp and Vivox. Bill also worked at GE Capital, where he helped finance early stage life science companies and was a Financial Analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Bill is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds a Bachelor Degree from Northwestern University and graduated with honors from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Cody Norton is the Co-Founder of Ignite the Spark, the Israeli Energy Tech Innovation Community, which focuses on supporting the Israeli Energy Tech Ecosystem through both domestic and international partnerships. Cody is a graduate of Indiana University, receiving degrees in Business Entrepreneurship from the Kelley School of Business and Economics.

Besides having a passion for clean energy, Cody works to bring the brightest minds from around the world to intern at Israeli companies and he is always looking for new projects.

Cody is a 28 year old, originally from Los Angeles, USA and currently resides in Israel.

Daniela Kandel is the Senior Director of Innovation Bridges, leading the Global Finder Network initiative and Country Relations at Start-Up Nation Central (SNC).

Leading the organization’s ecosystem-to-ecosystem work, Daniela develops bridges between innovation ecosystems around the globe by leveraging Israel's unique assets and capabilities. Daniela and her team develop two main kinds of innovation bridges – the Global Finder Network and Impact Bridges – in order to increase the positive impact of Israeli technologies in developing markets, with activities in India, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Daniela is building a global network of online discovery platforms (Global Finder Network) around the globe to develop opportunities for multilateral collaboration in the tech sector. She previously led SNC’s efforts to strengthen Israel’s innovation ties with Europe, and before that, she led SNC’s efforts to alleviate the shortage of human capital in the Israeli high-tech industry.

Prior to joining SNC, Daniela was a Milken Institute Fellow stationed at the Department of the Accountant General in Israel’s Ministry of Finance. Focusing on financial innovation, social entrepreneurship, and impact investing, she was involved in developing Israel’s first social impact bond for the prevention of Type 2 Diabetes.

She holds an M.A. in financial economics and a B.A. in economics and statistics, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dan is currently a consultant to a number of high tech companies and hardware manufacturing and cleantech accelerators nationwide.  He also leads the Nation’s first Industry 4.0 Accelerator supporting manufacturing technology firms globally.  Dan also serves as the Director of the Lawrence Technological University Centrepolis Accelerator, a program that helps accelerate and scale small manufacturers and innovators of new “hardware” physical products.

Dan has served as a developer for DOE / Lawrence Livermore National Lab training curricula, Build4Scale, that educates product developers / companies with “hardware” based products on how to scale their business.  Dan has instructed extensively using the Build4Scale curriculum for both Centrepolis Accelerator in Michigan and FuzeHub in New York.  He has been an instructor and curriculum developer for DOE / ARPA-E I-Corps Program; and has served as an advisor for the National Governor’s Association’s (NGA) Clean Energy Economic Development Policy Academy program, and as a contributor to DOE’s Industry Peer and Annual Merit Review activities.  Dan has developed a unique tool for coaching and mentoring early stage hardware physical product developers Commercial / Technology / Manufacturing Readiness Assessment and Planning Tool that is being adopted by the State of Michigan, and FuzeHub in New York.

Dan was formerly the Chief Strategy / Operating Officer for the Optimal Group, small businesses and start-ups focused on product development, competitive business strategy, product benchmarking, product development and engineering.   While at Optimal Dan was responsible for diversifying the company’s business model to evolve into full vehicle development with specialization in electric vehicle development, growing the revenue by $20 million annually, and scaling the business globally to over 350 employees.

In his prior role as Vice President of Industry and Venture Development at NextEnergy, Dan led all market and technology analytic efforts to support the growth of early-stage and mature energy technology firms in areas such as wind, solar, advanced batteries, power electronics, vehicle electrification, smart grid, micro-grid, natural gas, and energy efficiency.  This included NextEnergy’s venture and incubator services, supporting the commercialization efforts of approximately 1,000 new developers of advanced energy technologies; and helping over 120 manufacturers successfully diversify into the clean energy supply chain.  Dan also orchestrated a number of global innovation challenges with corporate partners such as Ford Motor Company and Wells Fargo that crowdsourced the best ideas in building and automotive lighting, battery and smart cities technologies.

Radomski frequently serves as an advisor, judge, mentor and committee member for regional and national accelerators and cleantech competitions, including NextCorps MCorps, SecondMuse MCorps, ITAC, FuzeHub, TechStars Mobility, CleanTech Open, Clean Energy Trust Challenge, Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, DTE E-Challenge, Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest, and the Michigan Clean Energy Venture Challenge.

Prior to NextEnergy Dan was co-founder of a clean energy technology consultancy with offices in Berkley, MI and Barcelona, Spain.  Dan also worked for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers on product development for advanced manufacturing technologies and disciplines including lean manufacturing, machining, fabrication, composites, micro- and nano-manufacturing.  

Darrell Louder is Senior Director of the Operations and Technology Advanced Analytics Group at Seagate Technology, a leading provider of data storage solutions.  Seagate is helping people across the world build the datasphere and realize the value that having access to vast amounts of data provide. 

Seagate has its own datasphere built from a globally distributed, vertically integrated supply chain built up over 40 years.  The Advanced Analytics Group collaborates with global teams to build connected solutions unlocking the potential of this datasphere to improve Seagate’s process performance and product reliability.

Doug co-founded eLab Ventures, an early-stage Venture Capital firm, in 2012 with a goal to invest in the growing Michigan entrepreneurial ecosystem and bridge those investments to their network in Silicon Valley.  eLab has invested in over 17 companies since its inception.

Doug previously served as Executive Director of the University of Michigan Center for Entrepreneurship and held leadership positions at Hewlett Packard, Symantec, and iPass, and co-founded Mobile Automation, which he sold in 2005.

Doug is a frequent guest speaker and panelist in the Michigan entrepreneurial ecosystem and serves on the boards of Blue Medora, New Vital Signs, Akadeum, Voxel51, Refraction.AI, and the Michigan Venture Capital Association.  Doug is also a co-founder and on the steering committee for the Ann Arbor Entrepreneurs Fund (A2EF).  Doug has a bachelor's degree in computer science from Central Michigan University. 

Dov Moran is one of the most prominent Israeli hi-tech leaders in the world, and the Managing Partner of Grove Ventures.

He is an investor, inventor and entrepreneur, who is best known as the inventor of the USB flash drive.

Moran founded M-Systems, acquired by SanDisk for $US 1.6 billion in 2006.

He also served as the chairman of Tower Semiconductors, a developer and manufacturer of semiconductors and integrated circuits, in which he led a massive overhaul. Under Moran’s guidance, the company achieved a notable turnaround and became an enormous success.

Mr. Moran was awarded with multiple prizes, including Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, the prestigious Edward Rheine award, the Johnson Information Storage Systems Award and the Netexplo Talent of the Year award. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Israel's Academic Center of Law & Science, the Moscow State Technical University and the Technion - the Israeli Institute of Technology.

He lectures extensively in universities and schools, and servs as a mentor to many Israeli entrepreneurs - to which he assists in converting research and innovation into viable businesses. His book 100 Doors - An Introduction to Entrepreneurship was published in 2016 and included insights from his untraditional path.

A serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years' experience, Leo has been deeply engaged in the digital transformation of diverse fields including retail, healthcare, manufacturing and government. Leo is the founder of the Israel Innovation Institute, an NGO dedicated to digital transformation of the Israeli public sector. He was awarded a PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in Business Strategy concentrating on the evolution process of knowledge-intensive industries.